Many of the following questions will not have a single answer. Each
library must develop policies in keeping with its mission, objectives,
and users. Librarians must also be cognizant of local legislation and
judicial decisions that may affect implementation of their policies. All
librarians are professionally obligated to strive for free access to
information.
- What are the factors that uniquely position American librarianship
to provide access to electronic information?
Electronic media offer an unprecedented forum for the sharing of
information and ideas envisioned by the Founding Fathers in the U.S.
Constitution. Their vision cannot be realized unless libraries provide
free access to electronic information, services, and networks.
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others laid the basis for a
government that made education, access to information, and toleration
for dissent cornerstones of a great democratic experiment. With
geographic expansion and the rise of a mass press, American government
facilitated these constitutional principles through the creation of
such innovative institutions as the public school, land grant
colleges, and the library. By the close of the 19th century,
professionally trained librarians developed specialized techniques in
support of their democratic mission. In the 1930's, the Library Bill of
Rights acknowledged librarians' ethical responsibility to the
Constitution's promise of access to information in all formats to all
people.
- What is the library's role in facilitating freedom of expression
in an electronic arena?
Libraries are a national information infrastructure providing
people with access and participation in the electronic arena.
Libraries are essential to the informed debate demanded by the
Constitution and for the provision of access to electronic information
resources to those who might otherwise be excluded.
- Why should libraries extend access to electronic information
resources to minors?
Those libraries with a mission that includes service to minors
should make available to them a full range of information necessary to
become thinking adults and the informed electorate envisioned in the
Constitution. The opportunity to participate responsibly in the
electronic arena is also vital for nurturing the information literacy
skills demanded by the Information Age. Only parents and legal
guardians have the right and responsibility to restrict their
children's and only their own children's access to any electronic
resource.
- Do ALA intellectual freedom and ethics policies apply to the
provision of access to electronic information, services and
networks?
Yes, because information is information regardless of format.
Library resources in electronic form are increasingly recognized as
vital to the provision of information that is the core of the
library's role in society.
- Does the ALA require that libraries adopt the Library Bill of
Rights or the ALA Code of Ethics?
No. ALA has no authority to govern or regulate libraries. ALA's
policies are voluntary and serve only as guidelines for local policy
development.
- Does ALA censure libraries or librarians who do not adhere to or
adopt the Library Bill of Rights or the ALA Code of Ethics?
No.
- Do libraries need to develop policies about access to electronic
information, services, and networks?
Yes. Libraries should formally adopt and periodically reexamine
policies that develop from the missions and goals specific to their
institutions.
RIGHTS OF USERS
- What can we do when vendors/network providers/licensors attempt to
limit or edit access to electronic information?
Librarians should be strong advocates of open access to information
regardless of storage media. When purchasing electronic information
resources, libraries should thus attempt to empower themselves during
contract negotiations with vendors/network providers/licensors to
ensure the least restrictive access in current and future products.
Libraries themselves along with any parent institution and
consortia partners should also communicate their intellectual freedom
concerns and public responsibilities in the production of their own
electronic information resources.
- How can libraries help to ensure library user confidentiality in
regard to electronic information access?
Librarians must be aware of patron confidentiality laws on library
records for their particular state and community. In accordance with
such laws and professional ethical responsibilities, librarians should
ensure and routinely review policies and procedures for maintaining
confidentiality of personally identifiable use of library materials,
facilities, or services. These especially include electronic
circulation and online use records. Hence, libraries and their
consortiums should ensure that their automated circulation systems,
other electronic information resources, and outside provider services
strive to conform to applicable laws and the library's ethical duty to
protect confidentiality of users.
Electronic records on individual use patterns should also be
strictly safeguarded. Software and protocols should be designed for
the automatic and timely deletion of personal identifiers from the
tracking elements within electronic databases. System access to
computer terminals or other stations should also be designed to
eliminate indicators of the research strategy or use patterns of any
identifiable patron. For example, the efforts of the last user of a
terminal or program should not remain on the monitor or be easily
retrievable from a buffer or cache by subsequent users. Library or
institutional monitoring for reserving time on the machines and the
amount of time spent in electronic information resources should be
similarly circumspect in protecting the patron's privacy rights.
Libraries and their institutions should provide physical
environments that facilitate user privacy for accessing electronic
information. For instance, libraries should consider placing
terminals, printers, and access stations so that user privacy is
enhanced. Where resources are limited, libraries should consider time,
place and manner restrictions.
Finally, libraries must be sensitive to the special needs for
confidential access to electronic information sources of physically
challenged patrons.
- Our library is just one of many autonomous institutions in a
consortium. How can we be sure that our cooperating partners honor
the confidentiality of our library users in a shared network
environment?
This is a contractual and legal matter. The importance of
confidentiality of personally identifiable information about library
users transcends individual institutional and type of library
boundaries. Libraries should establish and regularly review
interlibrary and interagency cooperative agreements to ensure clear
confidentiality policies and procedures, which obligate all members of
a cooperative, or all departments and branches within a parent
institutions.
- Do libraries need an "acceptable use policy" for
electronic information access? If so, what elements should be
considered for inclusion?
Access questions are rooted in Constitutional mandates and a
Library Bill of Rights that reach across all media. These should be
professionally interpreted through general service policies that also
relate to the specific mission and objectives of the institution. Such
general policies can benefit from the legacy and precedents within the
ALA's Intellectual Freedom Manual, including new interpretations for
electronic resources.
Reasonable restrictions placed on the time, place, and manner of
library access should be used only when necessary to achieve
substantial library managerial objectives and only in the least
restrictive manner possible. In other words, libraries should focus on
developing policies that ensure broad access to information resources
of all kinds, citing as few restrictions as possible, rather than
developing more limited "acceptable use" policies that seek
to define limited ranges of what kinds of information can be accessed
by which patrons and in what manner.
- Why shouldn't parental permission be required for minor access to
electronic information?
As with any other information format, parents are responsible for
determining what they wish their own children to access
electronically. Libraries may need to help parents understand their
options during the evolving information revolution, but should not be
in the policing position of enforcing parental restrictions within the
library. In addition, libraries cannot use children as an excuse to
violate their Constitutional duty to help provide for an educated
adult electorate.
The Library Bill of Rights--its various Interpretations (especially
Free Access to
Libraries for Minors; Access for Children and Young People to
Videotapes and Other Nonprint Formats), and ALA's Guidelines for the
Development and Implementation of Policies, Regulations and Procedures
Affecting Access to Library Materials, Services and Facilities--also
endorse the rights of youth to library resources and information as
part of their inalienable rights and the passage to informed
adulthood. Electronic information access is no different in these
regards.
- Does our library have to make provisions for patrons with
disabilities to access electronic information?
Yes. The Americans With Disabilities Act and other federal and
state laws forbid providers of public services, whether publicly or
privately governed, from discriminating against individuals with
disabilities. All library information services, including access to
electronic information, should be accessible to patrons regardless of
disability.
Many methods are available and under development to make electronic
information universally accessible, including adaptive devices,
software, and human assistance. Libraries must consider such tools in
trying to meet the needs of persons with disabilities in the design or
provision of electronic information services.
EQUITY OF ACCESS
- My library recognizes different classes of users. Is this a
problem?
The mission and objectives of some libraries recognizes
distinctions between classes of users. For example, academic libraries
may have different categories of users (e.g., faculty, students,
others). Public libraries may distinguish between residents and
non-residents. School library media centers embrace curricular support
as their primary mission; some have further expanded access to their
collections. Special libraries vary their access policies depending on
their definition of primary clientele. Establishing different levels
of users should not automatically assume the need for different levels
of access.
- Does the statement that "electronic information, services,
and networks provided directly or indirectly by the library should
be equally, readily, and equitably available to all library
users" mean that exactly the same service must be available to
anyone who wants to use the library?
No. It means that access to services should not be denied on the
basis of an arbitrary classification, for example, age or physical
ability to use the equipment. This phrase, from Economic Barriers
to Information Access: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,
clarifies that simply making printed information sources available to
those unable to pay while charging for electronic information sources
abridges the principles of equality and equity.
- Which is a higher priority to offer more information or not to
charge fees? Does this mean my library cannot charge fees?
The higher priority is free services. Charging fees creates
barriers to access. That is why ALA has urged librarians, in
"Economic Barriers to Information Access," to "resist
the temptation to impose user fees to alleviate financial pressures,
at long term cost to institutional integrity and public confidence in
libraries."
- Does "provision of information services" include
printouts?
Whenever possible, all services should be without fees. Any
decision to charge for service should be based on whether the fee
creates a barrier to access. For example, some libraries have long
provided free access to printed magazines while charging for
photocopies. Translated to the electronic environment, this means that
some libraries will provide the text on the screen at no charge, but
might charge for printouts.
- If my library has no "major support from public funds,"
can we then charge fees?
Yes, but ALA advocates achieving equitable access and avoiding and
eliminating barriers to information and ideas whenever possible.
- What do you do if one person monopolizes the equipment?
This is a policy issue to be established within each library
according to its mission and goals. Time, place, and manner
restrictions should be applied equitably to all users.
INFORMATION RESOURCES AND ACCESS
- How does providing connections to "global information,
services, and networks" differ from selecting and purchasing
material for an individual library?
Selection begins with the institution's mission and objectives. The
librarian performs an initial selection from available resources, and
then the user makes a choice from that collection. Many electronic
resources, such as CDs, are acquired for the library's collection in
this traditional manner. Collections consist of fixed discrete items.
When libraries provide Internet access, they provide a means for
people to use the wealth of information stored on computers throughout
the world, whose ever-changing contents are created, maintained and
made available beyond the library. The library also provides a means
for the individual user to choose for him- or herself the resources
accessed and to interact electronically with other computer users
throughout the world.
- How can libraries use their selection expertise to help patrons
use the Internet?
Libraries should play a proactive role in guiding parents to the
most effective locations and answers. Library websites are one
starting place to the vast resources of the Internet. All libraries
are encouraged to develop websites, including links, to Internet
resources to meet the information needs of their users. These links
should be made within the existing mission, collection development
policy and selection criteria of the library.
- Should the library deny access to Constitutionally protected
speech on the Internet in order to protect its users or reflect
community values?
No. The library should not deny access to
constitutionally-protected speech. People have a right to receive
constitutionally-protected speech, and any restriction of those rights
imposed by a library violates the U.S. Constitution.
- Does using software that filters or blocks access to electronic
information resources on the Internet violate this policy?
The use of filters implies a promise to protect the user from
objectionable material. This task is impossible given current
technology and the inability to define absolutely the information to
be blocked.
The filters available would place the library in a position of
restricting access to information. The library's role is to provide
access to information from which individuals choose the material for
themselves.
Technology could be developed that would allow individual users of
public terminals to exercise a choice to impose restrictions on their
own searches. If these types of filters become available, libraries
should carefully scrutinize them in light of their mission and goals.
- Why do libraries have an obligation to provide government
information in electronic format?
The role of libraries is to provide ideas and information across
the spectrum of social and political thought and to make these ideas
and this information available to anyone who needs or wants it. In a
democracy libraries have a particular obligation to provide library
users with information necessary for participation in self-governance.
Because access to government information is rapidly shifting to
electronic format only, libraries should plan to continue to provide
access to information in this format, as well.
- What is the library's role in the preservation of electronic
formats?
The online electronic medium is ephemeral and information may
disappear without efforts to save it. When libraries create
information, they have the responsibility to preserve and archive it,
if it meets the library's mission statement.
- Does "must support access to information on all
subjects..." mean a library must provide material on all
subjects for all users, even if those users are not part of the
library's community of users or the material is not appropriate for
the library?
The institution's mission and objectives will drive these
decisions.
- The Interpretation states that libraries should not deny access to
resources solely because they are perceived to lack value. Does this
mean the library must buy or obtain every electronic resource
available?
No. The institution's mission and objectives will drive these
decisions.
- How can the library avoid becoming a game room and still provide
access to this material?
Libraries sometimes seek to prohibit the playing of computer games
because the demand for terminals exceeds the supply. The libraries
impose time, place or manner restrictions to the use of electronic
equipment and resources. Such restrictions should not be based on the
viewpoint expressed in the information being accessed.
- Do copyright laws apply to electronic information?
Yes. Librarians have an ethical responsibility to keep abreast of
copyright and fair use rights. This responsibility applies to:
- the library's own online publications,
- contractual obligations with authors and publishers,
- informing library users of copyright laws which apply to their
use of electronic information.
Copyright (c) 1999, American Library Association.
