Juanita Leatham e-portfolio

Competency A: Demonstrate awareness of the ethics, values, and foundational

principles of one of the information professions, and discuss the importance of those

principles within that profession.

Introduction

In working in the private or public sector, those that work in the Library and Information Science areas (LIS) have standards that they work with that are important to cover. I chose to work with the public arena, so this is where many of my interpretations of LIS will come from. The ethics, values, and foundational principles that I will be discussing here will be coming from the ALA or the American Library Association or other educational sources. “ALA’s official standards and guidelines, including additional documents prepared and endorsed by various ALA units for the purpose of helping others improve library service and guide the development of best practices” (ALA.org, 2025). Work that I have completed will be described here alongside the competencies. Librarians work alongside the ALA but also with Congress and the first amendment. 

Intellectual Freedom

Protected by the first amendment or part of Competency A’s ethics is found in “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (Congress.gov, 2025), the library is protected to have visitors read and watch what they choose as long as it doesn’t go against Children’s Internet Protection Act, which I will cover more on later. Libraries are also protected in hosting whichever books and media they want. However, this is not always the case depending on where one visits. Some libraries are withheld to house books and media based on political interpretation of the first amendment. This freedom is one of the most important legs on which libraries stand.

Library Bill of Rights

When becoming a librarian it is important to know one’s parameters especially found in Competency A’s foundational principles. The Library Bill of Rights has seven core principles that make it free for the library to operate so successfully. Some key takeaways are that content is always free to use by all. There is no reason to remove any books or material regardless of one’s beliefs or partisan viewpoints. There’s also no reason not to serve anyone as well. “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views” (ALA.org, 2025). There’s also a right to privacy as well that will also be discussed after this.

Children’s Internet Protection Act

The Children’s Internet Protection Act is an ethical and important piece of library legislation that protects children via blocking websites that are not for children. “A: The law defines a “technology protection measure” as “a specific technology that blocks or filters Internet access to visual depictions that are— (A) obscene . . .; (B) child pornography . . .; or (C) harmful to minors . . .” (ALA.org, 2025). This refers to Competency A’s values and means that children are protected via the computers around them when they visit the library. However, text is not protected. Only visual images, child pornography, and obscenities are blocked. This is a major win for the library system as it protects the most vulnerable of library patrons. This creates “community standards” for defining child protections and also privacy for librarians and the public. Those that are under 17 are who this Act protects. There are limitations to this via “At this time we are aware of no filtering technology that will block out all illegal content, but allow access to constitutionally protected materials” (ALA.org, 2025). So, for instance, there may be a streaming video that has adult material playing on a computer in the library like a sex scene slipping through the cracks. However it’s not a perfect blockout, but it is better than nothing.  

Evidence

1- INFO 234 Intellectual Freedom Seminar: Resource Selection Assignment

My first piece of evidence for Competency A is from the INFO 234 Intellectual Freedom Seminar piece assignment called “Resource Selection Assignment”. This assignment had us go through “Selection Policies” and define them as they were introduced in various libraries throughout the United States. I put what was found in one Oregon state library system’s ethics material that l found online: “The State Library compiles an annual report which presents a landscape of challenges in our state, and updates an index to materials challenges which teachers, librarians, and booksellers in Oregon use for Banned Books Week displays, activities, discussions, and events” (State Library of Oregon, 2024). The focus on Banned Books Week refers to libraries that keep banned books shelved instead of unshelved. This choice is protected under the first amendment as noted in the corresponding section matching Intellectual Freedom above and also reflects the ethics and values of Competency A. 

2-  INFO 234: Intellectual Freedom Seminar: 2024 Library Bill of Rights Assignment

My second piece of evidence for Competency A, The Library Bill of Rights assignment. It is shown in a past assignment from the class INFO 234 Intellectual Freedom Seminar. This assignment uses various American Library Association’s segments and to define what each part means. There were 25 parts to the assignment and each had questions that were to be answered using the links that connected to the heading. For instance, “Access to Digital Resources and Services” (ALA.org, 2024) and its corresponding link on the ALA.org pages. This section discussed that adults and minors retain the right to access constitutionally “protected information and, at a minimum, have the right to ask the library or librarian to provide access to erroneously blocked information in a timely and confidential manner” (ALA.org, 2025). There was then a follow-up question about what the librarian or archivist was to do about the section. In keeping with Competency A’s values and ethics for that section of the Library Bill of Rights, I answered: “Librarians should keep patrons’ identifiable information private. Librarians should provide information that was erroneously inputted into the system to the person requesting the information. Librarians should give information as long as it’s not private information to the requester. They should also inform the library patron of these rights” (Leatham, 2025).

3- INFO 234: Intellectual Freedom Seminar: Filtering Questions Assignment

To continue on to my third piece of evidence for Competency A’s foundational principals, I analyzed the Children’s Internet Protection Act. To dive deeper into CIPA I wrote answers to questions posed in INFO 234 Intellectual Freedom Seminar’s “Filtering Questions” assignment. For this assignment I responded to 5 questions about CIPA in public libraries. One of the questions asked if I, the librarian, would put adult content filters on public library computers. To this I said of course. The reason behind it is, any computer can be used by an adult seeking adult sex content and there could also be children or teens looking for or accidentally coming across such content. However, I also wrote, “I would CIPA compliance filter employee access as employees must be able to research anything on the internet that their patrons are looking or researching for, but are within the realm of law” (ALA.org, 2025). So there is wiggle room for adult content and for censoring it. This means that the librarian is responsible for being a part of viewing what would have been blocked. It also means that the library patron’s privacy is being debated. Faced with deciding what’s to be kept private or not, the librarian’s job is to vet the content and unlock or lock out adult information.

Conclusion

The core of Competency A for me as a librarian is keeping patron’s privacy and upholding the first amendment are at the forefront. The ethics, values, and foundational principles of becoming a librarian is the first amendment, specifically freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech, more books I’m in charge of as a librarian would be banned from library shelves and more library patrons would not be able to request for those books to be loaned out. Because the first amendment plays a part throughout Competency A, being a librarian has drawn out parameters that keep me on track ethically. In being a librarian, having standards means protecting children’s rights with CIPA, upholding the Library Bill of Rights, as well as Intellectual Freedom.

References

American Library Association. (2003, July 16). CIPA questions and answers. https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/advocacy/content/advleg/federallegislation/cipa/cipaqa-1.pdf.

American Library Association. (2008, June 13). Intellectual freedom. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom.

American Library Association. (2019, January 29). Library Bill of Rights. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill.

Congress.gov. (n.d.). U.S. Constitution—First Amendment. Library of Congress. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/.

Leatham, J. (n.d.). 2024 Library Bill of Rights template [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/15y_LlqLsgL3EzaVIvfHtlkQ3WbDreHxL7Z0XAW29wPQ/edit.

Leatham, J. (n.d.). Filtering questions [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_P47MnNRQKJw1Tt3_fSiucTXKcq_bcZRwVA3n1jubok/.

Leatham, J. (n.d.). Resource selection assignment [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zm36ELBNW72Hw2klITS6kLUDYhk9iLyHBoUUODXGxzU/edit.

State Library of Oregon. (n.d.). Intellectual freedom toolkit: Advocacy. https://libguides.osl.state.or.us/iftoolkit/advocacy