Thursday, October 26, 2006
a question of ethics
An interesting thing came up in one of my classes yesterday and so I thought I would put it on my blog to see what my loyal readers thought. Imagine yourself as a librarian (as I one day will be) and someone comes up to you at the reference desk and asks for information (a book or otherwise) on how to build a bomb large enough to destroy a large office building. How do you respond? Can you automatically assume that this person is out to do harm? How do you know he isn't doing a research paper on this topic? To whom or what are you responsible? There are policies about free and unfettered access to all information through libraries--it's part of the mandate of most library associations. Are you responsible to your profession, your patron asking the question, the community, or primarily yourself? In the end, do you help this patron find the information or not? I have wrestled with this for the past day or so and thus want to know what YOU think. So, subjects of the Bing Dynasty, let's hear what you have to say...
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6 comments:
That's a tough one. Can you give the person access to the information, then call the cops and tell them to flag the dude?
Here's another ethical question. After being completely thumped by the Sens, Tucker - whom the Bing has described as the 'heart and soul' of the Leafs - beats up on a kid who has never dropped his gloves in the NHL before, then gloats like he's just taken on and defeated King Kong (typical).
The question: tonight, do the Sens send out Neil and Mcgratton to pound the living @#$%* out of Tucker, or do they just prove their superiority by thrashing them on the scoreboard again?
Randy
well, yeah you could just ask what the information is for. strike up some sort of conversation as you help them (if you choose to do so). you might be able to tell if they seem sketchy. in the end, they could just lie to you. and as cynical as this sounds, if, for whatever reason, they can't get the info from the library there's always the internet.
I say the hell with it and give the dude the dam info ..
Like Jay said he has to be really stupid to go to the library, when you could just go online and find himself..
PS. Yeah I think the Sens should send out Neil and Mcgratton and beat the crap out if the leafs lol.
I'm not really sure what you should do in that situation. but i DO know that jack bauer would instantly drop his cover as a librarian, jump over the counter and use a near-lethal combination of pressure points and the dewey decimal system to hogtie the dude.
As I sit here on my bare floor at 1185 Cherry Road for what will probably be the last time, I read through my emails and decide to take a look at the shape of the Bing Dynasty. I thought that this is where my tax dollars went, to secretly keep tabs on flagged books with the word WAR, PRESIDENT, BOMB, JIHAD, etc. So really I think you just ask him what he is researching and if he lies he lies. People have heard of google right? http://www.members.lycos.nl/pyrocorp/pyrocorp_online/anar666.htm There took two seconds and now all your readers and that guy at the library know how to do lots of unethical stuff.
I am sure you will remove this post. Ha ha ha.
Mike Lambert
i would point him at an introductory physics text book.
it contains the information on how to build a bomb large enough to destroy a large office building, but would require quite of bit of effort to assimilate and condense down into an actual working device. odds are that the person in question would be discovered or seriously injured by prototypes.
is this really a worthwhile question? does the library really have a copy of the anarchists cookbook in the reference section?
what if i asked for a book on seducing teenagers?
how about a book on torture techniques?
how about martial arts books that contain descriptions of choke holds and other means of disabling or killing people with your bare hands?
i think a more realistic question is does a pulic library need to stock a book that has instructions for building bombs?
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