SLO 1 - Philosophy and ethics

During my first class for my MLIS, I had to get my IRB certification, which would allow me to do research on human subjects. IRB certification doesn't allow you to do whatever research you want, but it lets people know that you know the ethics of doing research on human subject, specifically that you can do no lasting harm when doing your research. We talked about the ethics of doing research on human subjects, as well as how certain populations are protected (such as prisoners and pregnant women) and need more IRB consideration before approval.

IRB Certificate for LIS 600: Foundations

For my LIS 644: Digital Libraries class, I created a metadata schema for a personal collection of photographs. As the photographs are family photographs, there are some ethics to consider, specifically with who owns the copyright and the fact that I would be posting pictures of people online. Everyone in my family was very interested in this project, as they were interested in what was in the photographs. I would regularly email my grandmother photographs and ask who was who (most of whom were her aunts and uncles or old family friends). When we went up to see her over Thanksgiving, she was very excited to see the digitized photographs on my uncle's TV. She was extremely excited to see photographs of her old friends, and happy to tell many stories about the photographs. My uncle almost pulled the flashdrive out of my hand on his way to downloading the photographs to keep. My family has wanted to see the photographs, but no one has had the time to do anything with them, especially in digitizing them.

And, as always, there is the ALA Code of Ethics, which details how librarians should be ethical in how they work. This includes everything from not judging people for what they read to making sure that there are no roadblocks to information access (two examples of roadblocks to information access would be the blocking of websites or not allowing a teen to check out Sherrlyn Kennon's Fantasy Lover). The ALA Code of Ethics helps librarians across the country do their job in the most ethical way. Most library organizations (such as SAA) have their own code of ethics, to beset ensure that their librarians are ethical in how the develop and manage collections, as well in how they interact with their patrons/customers.