Ethics and Values in Librarianship

Ethics and Values in Librarianship: A Historyaddresses the processes of development of library and information sciences, largely but not exclusively in a western context. It focuses on the fields ethics and values.

Here, Wallace Koehler, a leading researcher in the area of information ethics, debunks the prevailing notion that library and information science concepts and ethics have and remain constant. He demonstrates that in almost all areas of practice, this is simply not so. Instead of staying the same, our professional ethics and standards have evolved or shifted in their application as well as in the recognition of those standards by practitioners and users. Some of these changes are of very recent etiology.

Topics covered include:

· the freedom of expression,
· intellectual freedom,
· libraries and democracy,
· intellectual property, copyright, and fair use and,
· professional qualifications and credentialing.

Koehler examines the development of and changes to library and information science through practice and the writings of library and information theorists and practitioners from Varro during the reign of Julius Caesar to the present. He documents technological and social changes that have had foundational implications for the information professions and argues that ethical standards may be redefined overtime and new standards may emerge, older precepts and newer ones coexist. Not only a history, this is also one of the few contemporary books suitable for use in foundational courses and courses covering information and library ethics.

Dr.Wallace Koehlerrecently retired as the (founding) director of the LIS Program at Valdosta State University (VSU) in Georgia. He was on the VSU faculty for thirteen years. Before VSU, he was on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma. He is now professor emeritus at VSU.

Dr. Koehler holds a MS from the University of Tennessee and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research interests include information ethics and bibliometrics. His contributions to the bibliometric literature include analyses of the life cycle of web documents. He is among the first to publish in that area. His research into information ethics includes codes of ethics and professional organizations as well as surveys of practitioners in a number of countries.

He is the coauthor (with June Lester) of two editions ofFundamentals of Information Studies: Understanding Information and Its Environment.

Foreword
Preface

Chapter 1Libraries and Ethics
Chapter 2Stewardship and Service
Chapter 3Classification
Chapter 4On Public Libraries
Chapter 5On the Freedom of Expression, Intellectual Freedom, and their Control
Chapter 6Libraries and Democracy
Chapter 7Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Fair Use
Chapter 8Qualifications of the Librarian
Chapter 9Love of Libraries and Advice on Library Formation
Chapter 10New Conditions and New Principles
Chapter 11Concluding Chapter

Index
About the Author