1 11th Nordic Conference on Information and Documentation, Rekjavik, Iceland, 30 May – 1 June 2001 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration Dr. Robert W. Vaagan Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science Oslo University College

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 2 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  Ethical issues increasingly important  Infoethics and CIPA  UNESCO Infoethic Code of Conduct in 2003  Information specialists, including librarians must have procedures and standards to confront ethical challenges posed by privacy, authenticity, confidentiality, copyright, intellectual property rights, grey literature and electronic filtering

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 3 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  UNDHR Article 19 Freedom of Expression  IFLA/FAIFE: 26 national library associations with codes of conduct/ethics  Among Nordic countries only Sweden’s Librarian Association (BF) has adopted code of ethics  Other Nordic countries: existing legislation and standards seen as sufficient

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 4 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  Norwegian Library Association rejected proposed ethical guidelines in 1990  Reflected ALA and IFLA/FAIFE advocacy of freedom of expression and rejection of all forms of censorship  Censorship conditionally accepted in ICCPR and ECPHRFF  Censorship conditionally accepted in Norwegian Constitution and in revised Article 100 by committee in report to parliament

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 5 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  Failure to adopt ethical guidelines in 1990 resulted in ethics becoming non-issue in Norwegian librarianship  Quality control, service agreements and value statements have instead taken precedence  Librarianship thus ”ethically derailed”: ethics obligatory at universities and many university colleges at preparatory level  More than 1/3 of Norwegian business enterprises have ethical guidelines

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 6 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  1047 general or public libraries (folkebibliotek): material free of charge, users are children and adults, material selected for quality,variety and relevance  362 research or academic libraries: guidelines set by National Office for Research Documentation, Academic and Special Libraries  But no written guidelines in r&a libraries for collection development possibly a problem seen in conjunction with absence of ethical guidelines

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 7 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  National Office for Research Documentation, Academic and Special Libraries: working group to review need for ethical guidelines in r&a libraries  Many librarians express need for guidance on ethical issues linked e.g. with electronic filtering, collection building, relations with authorities, suppliers  Many see need for ethical guidelines in r&a libraries  Still too early to project whether ethical guidelines, if implemented, will be emulated by g&p libraries

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 8 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  Science and research ethics increasingly relevant globally  Misconduct in science (fabrications, plagiarism, salamization) on the increase?  Expanded educational and knowledge management roles for r&a libraries/librarians worldwide  Grey literature will expand due to prohibitive costs in normal scholarly publishing  Los Alamos electronic physics archive emulated in medicine and biology

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 9 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration  Librarian may be first to choose ”grey” book/article, from open-access archives before peer review  Greater circumspection by librarians called for in acquisitions and in negotiating electronic subscriptions  Librarians well qualified to detect cruder forms of salamization and plagiarism?  Librarians perhaps better qualified than researchers or administrators to see pitfalls in bibliometrics and author-generated metadata systems

Robert W.Vaagan, Oslo University College 10 Norwegian Librarian Ethics Revisited: The Case for Reconsideration Conclusions  Many reasons why Norway should reconsider absence of ethical guidelines for librarians  Infoethics, IFLA/FAIFE membership, many librarians have expressed need  Librarians in a&r libraries must have procedures and standards to deal with possible misconduct in science  Advocacy of freedom of expression combined with possibility of certain forms of censorship