ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 504 / C&RL News ■ July/August 1998 Crossroads of a profession Reflections of a yearlong discussion about electronic information by W. Lee Hisle I t has been my honor and privilege to represent the ACRL this year as president. I traveled to seven states and talked about the values o f librarianship in the electronic information age: what our values are, how they are being challenged, and how we li­ brarians must defend them. The values o f service, promotion o f edu­ cation, fair-use, preservation of the cultural record, literacy, and reading are critical to the profession as it continues its historical mission to support our democratic society. As I developed my talk, and as I thought about the topic through the year, I was struck by a paradox— that the arguably most dem o­ cratic form o f information access (the Internet and its Web) is in conflict with essential val­ ues o f an institution (the library), which de­ rives much o f its meaning and power from the support of democratic society. The bedrock o f our profession is intel­ lectual freedom. That value, coupled with those supporting librarian neutrality and diversity o f opinion (expressed through co l­ lection developm ent policies), form the core o f the profession. These historic values are in conflict today as the Web challenges the traditional con cep tion o f a “co llectio n .” Fur­ thermore, by opening the library doors to any and all materials available on the Web, traditional notions o f librarian neutrality and even of intellectual freedom must be reevalu­ ated. Show some responsibility The late Jo h n Swan once wrote that librar­ ians are committed to access, but not to truth. We don’t take responsibility for content or w e’d like not to. Our profession as em bod­ ied by the ALA, is considering adopting a statement, prepared by the 21st Century In­ tellectual Freedom Statem ent Com m ittee, “Libraries: An American Value,” that says, “We support the rights o f all individuals, includ­ ing children and young adults, [emphasis added] to determine which resources are ap­ propriate and necessary for them selves.”1 As if that d o d g e from re s p o n s ib ility w eren’t enough, we follow with: “We respect the responsibility of all parents to guide their own children’s use o f the library and its re­ sources and services.” It’s as if our profes­ sion were living in an idealized world where pornography and violent materials didn’t exist and, moreover, where parents actually have the time, and then use that time to guide their children’s use o f libraries. What is most disconcerting about these statements, and other ALA-adopted positions, is their proposed lack o f librarian responsi­ bility for what is appropriate for children. It’s curious that w e’ve always limited our col­ lections, or filtered them if you will, through an active “non-selection” process. If we didn’t buy an item, or accept it as a gift, the mate­ rial didn’t becom e part o f the collection. We took responsibility for our patrons through About the author W Lee Hisle is the im m e diate past-president o f ACRL a nd the associate vice p re sid e n t fo r Learning Resource Services a t A ustin C om m un ity College; e-m ail: hisle@austin.cc.tx.us mailto:hisle@austin.cc.tx.us We librarians w ill e v e n tu a lly pay a price fo r abdicating responsibility fo r th e im pact o f con tent on our patrons, specifically our children. collection development— though we defended our intellectual freedom principles saying we presented information on all sides of an issue. Now, if we follow our association’s edicts, providing the Web and access to its informa­ tion, we are acting contrary to our history and, I fear, in a manner untenable in our society. Since we don’t “collect” the Web, we don’t have the opportunity to select only those materials in support o f our population and institutions. Our collection development poli­ cies becom e moot in the face o f universal ac­ cess to Web information: if information is on the Web, w e’re expected to provide access to it in our libraries, regardless of appropriate­ ness to our collection. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t buy, or even accept as gifts, the advertising, the self-promoting, the vanity press, the sex and violence, and the games that constitute a healthy portion of the Web. (Unless, o f course, our collection development policy supported the acquisition of such materials.) As Carla Stoffle and Ann Symons wrote in a recent A m erican Libraries article, the Web “makes the world available with no need to m ake selections, no traditional means for evaluating quality, veracity, or applicability.… ” 2 We are avoiding the information media­ tion duty historic to our profession, avoiding the difficult (and perhaps impossible) job of actually limiting access only to those materi­ als on the Web that are in support o f our insti­ tutions. Why should we be surprised when politicians (e.g., Sen. John McCain’s [R-Arizona] filtering bill) attempt to legislate us into action? Children must be protected For adults, the Web is great. It's wild and wooly and unfettered by conventional information publishing restrictions. Why? Because adults can be taught, or they have learned, the criti­ cal thinking skills necessary to divide the trash from the treasure. Adults have the ability, or at least they should have, to distinguish qual­ ity information. And trash is okay for adults, too. The American experience has always in­ cluded sex and violence and rampant com ­ mercialism, and the Web is no exception. In most academic libraries, I think completely open access to the Web is required. But for children, we should have a differ­ ent standard. The American experience has long included protections for children, e.g., movie and TV ratings, zoning restrictions for adult-oriented businesses (including liquor stores), display prohibitions for skin maga­ zines, etc. As the eminent child psychiatrist Robert Coles wrote in the New York Times last fall, “We as a society must continue to make distinctions betw een what is and is not appropriate for children, and we must keep putting up barriers in the way o f the inap­ propriate on the Internet as well as on tele­ vision and in the m ovies.”3 We librarians will eventually pay a price for abdicating responsibility for the impact o f content on our patrons, specifically our children. We, I fear, will be seen as ever more libertarian and elitist and will be marginalized by politicians. Our positions on other topics important to the profession— the critical fight over fair-use in electronic information, for exam ple— may be disregarded due to our unreasonable position on Web access. It’s curious to be called a “conservative” librarian in Illinois and a libertine by my own staff. But it points out the gray area in which we are operating, the fine lines we are ne­ gotiating. I hope my them e this year, the speeches, and the guest editorials have chal­ lenged you to think about the values o f librarianship in your personal context. I never expected answers this year; I hoped for discourse and debate and reasoned, if im­ passioned, analysis. Librarians in this electronic age must question and resolve their personal beliefs to be effective leaders o f an institution critical to democracy— libraries. Notes 1. “Libraries: An American Value,” prepared by the 21st Century Intellectual Freedom State­ m ent C om m ittee and available at http:// w w w .ala.org/ alaorg/pe/statem ent.htm l. 2. Carla J. Stoffle and Ann K. Symons, “When Values Conflict.” A m erica n L ibraries 29:5 (May 1998): 5 6 -5 8 . 3. Robert C oles, “Safety Lessons for the In t e r n e t ,” N ew York T im es , 11 O c to b e r 1997, sec. A. C&RL News ■ July/A ugust 1998 / 505 http://www.ala.org/alaorg/pe/statement.html 5 0 6 /C&RL News ■ July/August 1998