Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Keynote address: Disciplines, documents and data: emerging roles for libraries in the scholarly information infrastructure
- 3 Denmark's Electronic Research Library: implementation of user-friendly integrated search systems in Denmark
- 4 An African experience in providing a digital library service: the African Virtual University (AVU) example
- 5 Project StORe: expectations, a solution and some predicted impact from opening up the research data portfolio
- 6 Publishing, policy and people: overcoming challenges facing institutional repository development
- 7 Libraries as a social space: enhancing the experience of distance learners using social software
- 8 The rise of recommendation and review: a place in online library environments?
- 9 Re-usable learning objects for information literacy: are they practical?
- 10 An introduction to the LearnHigher Centre for Teaching & Learning (CETL), with particular reference to the information literacy learning area and its work on information literacy audits at Manchester Metropolitan University
- 11 Information skills through electronic environments: considerations, pitfalls and benefits
- 12 Development of information-related competencies in European open and distance learning institutions: selected findings
- 13 Improving information retrieval with dialogue mapping and concept mapping tools
- 14 Public libraries, learning and the creative citizen: a European perspective
- 15 A user-centred approach to the evaluation of digital cultural maps: the case of the VeriaGrid system
- 16 The process of assessment of the quality, usability and impact of electronic services and resources: a Quality Attributes approach
- 17 Reaching the unreachable in India: effective information delivery service model of DELNET and the challenges ahead
- 18 Breaking through the walls: current developments in library service delivery: observations from a Sri Lankan perspective
- 19 Meeting users’ needs online in real-time: a dream of librarians in the developing world
- 20 Information Central: a service success case study
- 21 Discrete library services for international students: how can exclusivity lead to inclusivity?
- 22 Are we ethical? A workshop on the ethical challenges of providing library services to distance learners
- 23 Involving users in a technical solution to help assess the accessibility of websites
- 24 The reality of managing change: the transition to Intute
- Index
22 - Are we ethical? A workshop on the ethical challenges of providing library services to distance learners
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Keynote address: Disciplines, documents and data: emerging roles for libraries in the scholarly information infrastructure
- 3 Denmark's Electronic Research Library: implementation of user-friendly integrated search systems in Denmark
- 4 An African experience in providing a digital library service: the African Virtual University (AVU) example
- 5 Project StORe: expectations, a solution and some predicted impact from opening up the research data portfolio
- 6 Publishing, policy and people: overcoming challenges facing institutional repository development
- 7 Libraries as a social space: enhancing the experience of distance learners using social software
- 8 The rise of recommendation and review: a place in online library environments?
- 9 Re-usable learning objects for information literacy: are they practical?
- 10 An introduction to the LearnHigher Centre for Teaching & Learning (CETL), with particular reference to the information literacy learning area and its work on information literacy audits at Manchester Metropolitan University
- 11 Information skills through electronic environments: considerations, pitfalls and benefits
- 12 Development of information-related competencies in European open and distance learning institutions: selected findings
- 13 Improving information retrieval with dialogue mapping and concept mapping tools
- 14 Public libraries, learning and the creative citizen: a European perspective
- 15 A user-centred approach to the evaluation of digital cultural maps: the case of the VeriaGrid system
- 16 The process of assessment of the quality, usability and impact of electronic services and resources: a Quality Attributes approach
- 17 Reaching the unreachable in India: effective information delivery service model of DELNET and the challenges ahead
- 18 Breaking through the walls: current developments in library service delivery: observations from a Sri Lankan perspective
- 19 Meeting users’ needs online in real-time: a dream of librarians in the developing world
- 20 Information Central: a service success case study
- 21 Discrete library services for international students: how can exclusivity lead to inclusivity?
- 22 Are we ethical? A workshop on the ethical challenges of providing library services to distance learners
- 23 Involving users in a technical solution to help assess the accessibility of websites
- 24 The reality of managing change: the transition to Intute
- Index
Summary
Introduction
This paper reports on discussions drawn from a workshop on the ethical challenges of providing library services to distance learners, which was undertaken at the Libraries Without Walls conference in September 2007 (www.cerlim.ac.uk/conf/ lww7/).
Drawing on our respective experience at the UK's Open University and at Athabasca University, Canada's Open University, we engaged in a dialogue about ethical challenges in providing library support to distance learners. We felt it would be valuable to have a framework of ethical principles to guide our practice. Unable to locate an existing framework, we devised our own, influenced by the UK and Canadian professional codes of ethics for librarians (Canadian Library Association, 1976; CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, 2006), as well as by the Society of College, National and University Libraries’ briefing paper Access for Distance Learners: report of the SCONUL task force (SCONUL, 2001) and the Canadian Library Association's Guidelines for Library Support of Distance and Distributed Learning in Canada (CLA, 1993 [2000]).
The purpose of the workshop was to test a set of ethical guidelines proposed in an article we wrote for a special issue on ethics in Open Learning (Needham and Johnson, 2007).
The workshop scenario
The following scenario was enacted as an opener to the workshop; the characters are a librarian on a helpdesk telephone (L) and a distraught student on the telephone (S):
L: Hello. Library Helpdesk. Susan speaking. How can I help you?
S: I'm a student on the Science and Society course and I have a real problem with my assignment.
L: What's the problem?
S: Well, it's due tomorrow. I was supposed to do it over the weekend, but the children wanted to go shopping and my mum's not been too well, and then my partner had to work. You know how it is …
L: Well, yes …. So can you get it done tonight?
S: I've written a lot of it, but my computer has just blown up, just when I was going online to look for some literature.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Libraries Without Walls 7Exploring ‘anywhere, anytime’ delivery of library services, pp. 217 - 224Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2008