• Introductory Materials
  • Statement of Professional Ethics

    Introduction

    As members of the American Library Association, we recognize the importance of codifying and making known to the profession and to the general public the ethical principles that guide the work of librarians, other professionals providing information services, library trustees and library staffs.
    Ethical dilemmas occur when values are in conflict. The American Library Association Code of Ethics states the values to which we are committed, and embodies the ethical responsibilities of the profession in this changing information environment.

    We significantly influence or control the selection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information. In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and the freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations.
    The principles of this Code are expressed in broad statements to guide ethical decision making. These statements provide a framework; they cannot and do not dictate conduct to cover particular situations.


    Code of Ethics

    American Library Association Document
    1. We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.
      II We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.
      III We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.
      IV We recognize and respect intellectual property rights.
      V We treat co-workers and other colleagues with respect, fairness and good faith, and advocate conditions of employment that safeguard the rights and welfare of all employees of our institutions.
      VI We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions.
      VII We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.
      VIII We strive for excellence in the profession by maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.



    Reviewed 10/97
    Reviewed 9/04
    Reviewed 8/08
    Back to table of contents.
  • Montana Library Records Confidentiality Act
    As adapted from the Montana Code Books

    22-1-1102 Defintions

    (1) “Library” means a library that is established by the state, a county, city, town, school district, or a combination of those units of government, a college or university, or any private library open to the public.

    (2) “Library records” means any document, record or any other method of storing information retained, received, or generated by a library that identifies a person as having requested, used or borrowed library materials or other records identifying the names or other personal identifiers of library users. Library records does not include non-identifying material that may be retained for the purpose of studying or evaluating the circulation of library materials in general or records that are not retained or retrieved by personal identifier.

    22-1-1103

    Nondisclosure of library records

    (1) No person may release or disclose library records or portions of a library record to any person except in response to:
    1. a written request of the person identified in that record, according to procedures and forms giving written consent as determined by the library: or
      b an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, upon a finding that the disclosure of such record is necessary because the merits of public disclosure clearly exceed the demand for individual privacy.

    (2) A library is not prevented from publishing or making available to the public reasonable statistical reports regarding library registration and book circulation if those reports are presented so that no individual is identified therein.

    (3) Library records may be disclosed to the extent necessary to return overdue or stolen materials or collect fines.

    22-1-1111

    Penalty


    Any person who violates 22-1-1103 is guilty of a misdemeanor and is liable to the person identified in a record that is improperly released or disclosed. The person identified may bring a civil action for actual damages or $100, whichever is greater. Reasonable attorney fees and the costs of bringing the action may be awarded to the prevailing party.

    Reviewed 10/97
    Reviewed 11/04
    Reviewed 8/08
    Back to table of contents.
  • Library Bill of RIghts
    The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services:
    1. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
      2 Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
      3 Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
      4 Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
      5 A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
      6 Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve, should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

    Reviewed 10/97
    Reviewed 9/04
    Reviewed 8/08
    Back to table of contents.
  • Freedom to Read
    American Library Association Document

    The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the county are working to remove books from sale, to censor textbooks, to label “controversial” books, to distribute lists of “objectionable” books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as citizens devoted to the use of books and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating them, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.

    We are deeply concerned about these attempts at suppression. Most such attempts rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary citizen, by exercising his critical judgment, will accept the good and reject the bad. The censors, public and private, assume that they should determine what is good and what is bad for their fellow citizens.

    We trust Americans to recognize propaganda, and to reject it. We do not believe they need the help of censors to assist them in this task. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be “protected” against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.

    We are aware, or course, that books are not alone in being subjected to efforts at suppression. We are aware that these efforts are related to a larger pattern of pressures being brought against education, the press, films, radio, and television. The problem is not only one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast by these pressures leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary curtailment of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy.

    Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of uneasy change and pervading fear. Especially when so many of our apprehensions are directed against an ideology, the expression of a dissident idea becomes a thing feared in itself, and we tend to move against it as against a hostile deed, with suppression.

    And yet suppression is never more dangerous than in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the United States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path of novel and creative solutions, and enables change to come by choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with stress.

    Now, as always in our history, books are among our greatest instruments of freedom. They are almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. They are the natural medium for the new idea and untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. They are essential to the extended discussion which serious thought requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.

    We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that that these pressures towards conformity present the danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and culture depend. We believe that every American community must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians have profound responsibility to give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.

    The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with faith in free men will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.

    We therefore affirm these propositions:
    1. It is the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those which are unorthodox or unpopular with the majority.
      Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different. The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until his idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept which challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times like these. We need to know not only what we believe but why we believe it.
      2 Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation contained in the books they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what books should be published or circulated.
      Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought. The people should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one man can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.
      3 It is contrary to public interest for publishers or librarians to determine the acceptability of a book on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.
      A book should be judged as a book. No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free men can flourish which draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
      4 There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression.
      To some, much of modern literature is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet the diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed, as they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically for themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not to be discharged simply by preventing them from reading works for which they are not yet prepared. In these matters taste differs, and taste cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised which will suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.
      5 It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept with any book the prejudgment of a label characterizing the book or author as subversive or dangerous.
      The idea of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for the citizen. It presupposes that each individual must be direct in making up his mind about the ideas he examines. But Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.
      6 It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people’s freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large.
      It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an individual or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual or group. In a free society, each individual is free to determine for himself what he wishes to read, and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to its freely associated members. But no group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the accepted and the inoffensive.
      7 It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, book men can demonstrate that the answer to a bad book is a good one, the answer to a bad idea is a good one.
      The freedom to read is of little consequence when expended on the trivial; it is frustrated when the reader cannot obtain matter fit for his purpose. What is needed is not only the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and said. Books are the major channel by which the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing and growth. The defense of their freedom and integrity, and the enlargement of their services to society, requires of all book men the utmost of their faculties, and deserves of all citizens the fullest of their support.

    We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of books. We do so because we believe that they are good, possessed of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.

    Reviewed 10/97
    Reviewed 11/04
    Reviewed 8/08
    Back to table of contents.
  • Electronic Bill of Rights
    1. Electronic information and media resources should be provided for the interest, entertainment, information, and enlightenment of all the people of the community that the library serves. Electronic materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or view of those contributing to their creation.
      2 Electronic databases are a vast source of information, representing all points of view. Access to these databases should not be restricted because of content or viewpoint. The library does not necessarily endorse the information and viewpoints found on any electronic database.
      3 Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas in whatever format.
      4 A person’s right to use a library and all its resources should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views. Libraries and governing bodies should maintain that parents and only parents have the right and responsibility to restrict access of their children, and only their children, to electronic resources. The library does not function as the parent. E-mail accounts for minors require a parent or guardian’s signature.
      5 Electronic access carries the same rights and responsibilities as the Montana Library Records Confidentiality Act.
      6 Electronic access should not be used for illegal activity, program and database disruption, or infringement of another’s freedom of expression or right to privacy.
      7 The allocation of electronic resources is at the prerogative of the library and its governing body. Electronic access may be denied because of illegal activity, program or database disruption and/or destruction, infringement of another’s freedom of expression or right to privacy. Electronic access may also be denied if the account is not used within a specified time or because of library budgetary or collection management decisions. Library policies and procedures should ensure due process for those denied access.

    Reviewed 10/97
    Revised 1/05
    Reviewed 8/08
    Back to table of contents.
| Policies & Procedures | Site by Alchemy DTP | Contact the Webmaster