Photo by loneblackrider on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
In my last post, I posed an ethical scenario involving whether or not to waive library late fees. Sixteen people voted and here’s the breakdown:
Case 1, The Harry Potter fan: The vote was 10 to 6 in favor of letting the casual reader check out the last book in the Harry Potter series.
Case 2, The G.E.D. student: The vote was 13 to 3 in favor of letting an unemployed woman check out a G.E.D. study guide despite her library fines.
Case 3, The stranger: The vote was 11 to 4 in favor of letting a complete stranger check out a G.E.D. study guide, despite library fines.
Most of the comments in favor of waiving library fines argued that library fines are a disincentive to use the library, rather than their intended function as a disincentive to keep books beyond their due dates. Most of the arguments against waiving the fines pointed to the importance of personal responsibility on the parts of our patrons. In both cases, the fundamental issue seems to be the fairness, though interpreted quite differently. Those who wanted to waive fines tended to argue that fine policies in and of themselves are unfair to patrons. Those who did not want to waive the fines tended to argue that consistent application of library policy is necessary to make the policy fair. Finally, several comments pointed out that an ILS typically allows staff to override holds on accounts, so there may be other options.
I’m not surprised that most people would let the woman in Case 2 check out the GED study guide; I know I would. It seems to be a straightforward test of our commitment to improving our community. However, I am rather surprised at the vote for Case 1. Waive or override fines because someone really wants to read a Harry Potter book? Really? Perhaps I didn’t make the scenario realistic enough. For those who would waive the fine for the Harry Potter fan, what would you do in the following case:
Case 4, Pumpkin Spice Latte: A woman comes to the circulation desk to check out Fifty Shades of Grey only to find that she must pay a $10 fine. She admits that she has the cash but she really wanted to buy a pumpkin spice latte after leaving the library. Would you override the hold on her account or waive the fine?
I’m not going to answer this one, because I’d like another shot at starting a new discussion. In the interests of getting a more even split, I’m going to propose another library dilemma, one that happens every Fall semester at our reference desk. Let me know what you think in the comments. (No Google Form this time; it didn’t work the way I had hoped.)
Photo by selva on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
A library service scenario: The music assignment
You work at the reference desk in an academic library. Every semester, Professor Jones assigns a devilishly tricky “library treasure hunt” to his music history students. The assignment consists of 50 music trivia questions and no guidance as to where to find the answers. Here’s an easy one: how many times did Kirsten Flagstad sing the role of Brünnhilde in the 1939-1940 season at the Metropolitan Opera? (Yes, that’s a real question on a real assignment.) After several semesters of the same assignment, the reference desk has put together a document with the answers to all 50 questions. How would you handle the following situations…
Case 1: The last-minute student
The day before the assignment is due, a frazzled student comes to the reference desk and asks for the answers to half of the trivia questions. Do you give her the answers? If so, why? If not, do you provide some other type of assistance?
Case 2: The very last minute student
Ten minutes before the assignment is due, a frazzled student comes to the reference desk and asks for the answers to all of the trivia questions. Do you give him the answers? If so, why? If not, do you provide some other type of assistance?
Case 3: The music history professor
Professor Smith is considering assigning a similar project for his music history students. He has an answer form with half of the answers filled in and he knows that he could probably find all of the answers on his own if he spent a few hours, but he asks you for half of the answers so he can save some time. Do you give him the answers? If so, why? If not, do you provide some other type of assistance?
What, exactly, are the ethical dilemmas here? Do all three patrons have the same information need? Does the amount of work each patron has already put in matter? Do the research abilities of the patrons matter? Would your answer change if you worked in a public library? Can you create another case that leads to additional ethical dilemmas? Feel free to comment below!
Sense & Reference 
What library is this? At mine, over 1,000 people are waiting for Fifty Shades of Grey. She just grabbed it then walked up to the counter to check it out? Wow!?
You are implying that some kinds of materials (GED textbooks) are more important than others (fiction). Many librarians agreed with you, 100 years ago, but today, it is not all that surprising that you are in the minority. I think your results may be reflecting that collective change in attitude. Librarians are no longer gatekeepers; we have more important things to do. Let art transform our patrons’ lives as much as high school diplomas do.
I also see you framing all of these “ethical dilemmas” in terms of library transactions. It is hard to respond because personally, I see library service in terms of relationships.
Presumably pumpkin spice lady has come to the library before. She’s racked up $10 in fines! She knows us. We know her. Let her have her book. I’ll even waive the fine, but I’ll also let he know I’m noting it in her record. I’ll encourage her to pay her fine next time, or with her credit card online. We’re sympathetic, we’ll give her room to breathe, we’re on her team, we’re running out of metaphors, but we aren’t going to let her abuse the system. She knows we’d do the same thing for anyone else. We are part of the same community.
Mr. Music professor also has a relationship to the library. I’m sorry this is happening to you, and I don’t mean to sound too judgmental, but why isn’t his subject liaison working with him to create a reasonable and challenging assignment for students that doesn’t exhaust students and tax the library? This guy is making his students hate the library. Here is an ethical dilemma: should the professor be given a quick death, or a slow, painful one? I think the really hard work in the library is figuring out how to get that professor to change his tune*, not dealing with his students year after year. Talk to him about what the goals are of the assignment and how the library and academia are intertwined. Help him come up with a new assignment.
These are the ethical stands I’ll take: libraries are for everyone, libraries are about people.
*pun intended
Thanks for the comment dr ootzler.
I’m not implying that some kinds of materials are more important than others. Rather, I’m just curious whether there are any morally relevant distinctions we can or should make between information needs.
And I’m curious why you think that building strong relationships precludes us from providing services (i.e., “transactions”, as you put it). Perhaps you could elaborate?
Also, since you would add a note to the Latte Lady’s patron record, I presume that you would use that note to make some future decision. Is there, then, ever a point at which a patron should lose his or her borrowing privileges?
And as to the music professor, I’m sorry to say that it is what it is. It’s a sad truth that librarians do not have the ability to vet every assignment that may be assigned. In just the departments for which I am liaison (philosophy, religion, and the College of Business) there are more than 160 separate courses, excluding duplicates and thesis maintenance credits. That a handful of difficult assignments make their way to the library is inevitable. To be sure, we are quick to let a professor know if a particular assignment is exhausting students or taxing the library, but that’s rarely possible before the fact. But, then again, perhaps focusing on the difficulty of the assignment is a red herring. I think the more important moral question involves the extent to which we should satisfy information requests balanced against the extent to which we should respect the pedagogical intent of such assignments. If the music professor doesn’t strike your fancy, perhaps you can come up with another example wherein a student tacitly assumes a librarian will complete his or her homework since it is an “information need”?
As someone who works in an academic library, I would probably give the answers to the professor, but not to the students. I would be fine pointing them in the right direction, though (perhaps the resources best suited to their questions). While providing information is our job, doing student homework is not.
I definitely agree with dr ootzler’s repsonse – the professor should probably come up with a new assignment, one that is actually doable for the majority of the class without any hand-holding from the librarians, and should make use of his subject specialist to do so. There is also the question of what level the students are at – graduate students should be able to navigate the library’s resources with more skill than undergraduates (notice I say “should” – I know full well that this isn’t always true).
As for pumpkin spice latte – I’m sorry, but fines are fines. If her account has been overridden before (and a lot of the time, you can find out, either by asking her – and hoping she is telling the truth – or checking for notes on her account or something), definitely no. If this is the first time, sure, I’ll override it. But there are some things that are more important than others – if it was cash for bus fare, I would override. A pumpkin spice latte (while delicious) is not a necessity.
Thanks for the response, Melanie.
Agreed: we’re not here to do our students’ homework for them. Though, some librarians have trouble reconciling that with our professional commitment to equitable service.
As to the music assignment, what if I told you that it is only a small percentage of students that come to the reference desk for the answers? That is, what if the assignment wasn’t particularly difficult; one or two students just can’t (or don’t want to) get the answers themselves? A similar example might be the Freshman composition student that comes to the reference desk and asks for “five articles on gun control, I don’t care what they are and I don’t have time for you to show me.” If the assignment isn’t uniquely problematic, would that change your response?
I’m with you on Latte Lady: in the war between lattes and bettering our community, I’ll pick the community every time.
This is where the wonderful grey area of ethics comes in… what if Latte Lady was standing in line right behind the HP patron and the GED patrons? What if one of the GED patrons had the money but wanted a latte instead of bus fare?
I think if we pride our profession on passing no judgment or censorship concerning reading material, then we certainly have no right judging on the basis of financial decisions, and all four patrons have to be treated equally – charge them all or waive them all.
1,000 people waiting on a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey? I now have a severe headache and cannot finish this assignment….
Tama, you should ask at your library and see what their wait list is like. In a big city like yours I bet it’s at least a few hundred. I’ll be sure to bring some aspirin next time we visit 🙂
You’re correct, 407 holds, and counting, I’m sure. I am not qualified to answer these questions as I have no experience with these situations, but I actually did shut down after the Fifty Shades info…I am now recovering nicely.
Per the music assignment, we had one that sounds almost the same at the academic library where I had my graduate assistantship! Since many of the answers were known by the staff, the majority of the books needed to answer the questions were housed in the reference section. Why? Not only did it cluster the material together, but it prevented students from checking out material to keep others from locating the correct answers. And in our case, they had to use books and were not allowed to use electronic resources.
With Case 1 and Case 2, I would not give the students the answers. If they waited until the last minute, that is there own fault and they must own up to it and face the consequences. Life simply doesn’t hand everyone everything they need on a silver platter. It is a important life lesson the students must learn. However, I would point them towards the resources they need to answer the questions by suggesting a few titles or a section of the library to check. I would also remind them not to wait until the last minute on research assignments.
With Case 3, I would let the professor have the answers. Professors are often crunched for time between teaching, research, and committee work. Plus, he/she did not wait until the last minute. Also, the professor is more likely to help me with something later if I helped him/her before.
I think in these cases the ethical dilemma is more about timing and how one procrastinates. The students demanded answers when they failed to complete an assignment in a timely manner. The professor knew he/she could have found them, but wanted to focus on other endeavors important to their work. Even if I were in a public library, I doubt my answers would change.
Thanks for the comment! I like that you frame the issue in terms of learning lessons that go beyond the homework assignment itself. But, what if a student isn’t procrastinating? What if the student has been working diligently for weeks and honestly can’t find the answers? Would that change your decision?
You’re welcome!
With the way the original scenario were framed, procrastination could really be the only answer. Why? With that much of the assignment undone, it would have to affect more than one person for me to think the problem is with the assignment. If it was because of family issues or they were ill, hopefully they would have talked to the professor about an extension.
However, let’s say the student has been working diligently for weeks and still cannot find that many answers. If this is something I had observed, I would be more willing to help than if I didn’t know the situation. I still don’t think I would give them the answers but I would be more direct with help. Instead of just referring them to a section of resources, I might give them exact titles and databases to check for each answer. That way they are still learning research skills, but don’t have to sift through as much within their time constraints. Sure they won’t learn as much as they could since they are not narrowing down to relevant resources on their own, but they will still have to learn to use indexes, TOCs, or good search strings to answer the questions.
Music history and musicology departments seem to be known for these kinds of assignments and tests, so unfortunately, that’s an institutional culture kind of thing.
To answer your question though, consistency would be very important. I agree with the previous answers: that the librarians should not do the work for the students and should look for teachable moments, and the professor, whatever the merits of his assignment, should be given the answers. However, this standard needs to be applied to every student in every circumstance. There are moments when we are busy and in that moment, it is easy to let things slide and just give the answer. But we shouldn’t even then. A complication of this question might involve an outstanding student who is a steady library user with good research acumen. If a student like that falls far behind on one bad day and asks for the answers, I think it might be tempting for a librarian who knows this student well to give him the answers. It’s still an obvious setting aside of ethics, but other factors that are important to librarians, such as maintaining relationships, start to seem important at those moments. In fact, I would say that issues of private interests, also an ethical dimension, start to play a role there.
Hi Martin, thanks for commenting!
I think the issue of maintaining relationships is crucial. We should always remember that we have professional obligations not only to students, but also to faculty pedagogy…so long as it isn’t fundamentally unfair or unjust, of course. Rather than setting aside ethics, it seems like honoring our obligations to all stakeholders (which includes faculty) is a part of our ethical code.
The case of the outstanding student is interesting. I think that part of the reason people are inclined to give the answers to the professor, but not the student, is that the professor already knows how to find the answers…there’s nothing to be gained in creating a teachable moment. Provided we were absolutely sure that the student was an expert researcher, it would seem that fairness would dictate that we give the student the answers. What do you think?
If you aren’t saying that some materials are more important than others, what distinctions in those examples do you think are relevant? Treating the GED patron as the same as the Pumpkin Spice patron is a powerful ethic in our profession.
I don’t think it is very helpful, in a discussion of ethics, to frame library service in terms of isolated transactions. Libraries’ power is to enrich lives and scholarship. Talking about fines makes it seem like our power is to shush. Be good or no free books for you!
Does library service include transactions? Sure. Does drilling down into what someone wants to read or what they would rather do with their money inform my ethics? Not in the least.
A strong idea I see repeated here is that each patron has a responsibility to the library and the library has a responsibility to everyone in the community. The fine has traditionally been a mechanism to ensure that this responsibility is met, but it is not the only one. You can simply be generous and fair with people. “I’ll waive your fine this time, but not next time”, then stick to it. I’m not the only one saying this is how to behave.
So yes, absolutely, if Pumpkin Spice lady wants to waive her fines again next month, we’ll turn her away, sadly. It is important to leave the door open though – wink wink just pay part of it – to allow her to fulfill her responsibility without losing face and never coming back. Until she is abusing the relationship, it is more important that she use the library than that she pay a fine.
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I am imagining that your music professor puts an undue strain on the library and students. Perhaps I am wrong? But you have the answers compiled? What good is that if you don’t give them out? Or do you?
Hi Dr. O, thanks for the follow-up.
I think the morally relevant distinctions involve involve both information needs and our obligations to our communities. I assume you’ll disagree, but I believe that assisting a community member in her pursuit of a G.E.D. carries greater moral weight than assisting a community member in her pursuit of leisure reading. The fact that blindness to information needs is a powerful belief in the profession is something with which I’ll have to disagree.
As to the nature of fines and discussions about ethics, I do hope you realize that this scenario isn’t meant to represent the entire domain of ethical situations in libraries. Put simply, most libraries have fines and it’s worth our while to discuss how those fine policies should be applied. (for the record, my library has semester-long checkout periods with no late fines…a policy of which I heartily approve).
I agree that it’s perfectly reasonable to waive a fine “this time, but not next time.” This leads me to believe that you do, in fact, see some practical merit in library fine policies. So, if both Latte Lady and G.E.D. Gal had both been told “I’ll waive your fine once, but not next time” the last time they came to the library, would you prevent both from checking out their books? I assume you would not to stay consistent, but might this amend your belief about the irrelevance of patron intent?
Finally, we have the music answers at the reference desk in order to ensure that the assistance we provide leads students to the correct answers. It’s just far easier to provide students with assistance when we know the answers ourselves.
I like the distinction between student and instructor, academic and public library in this scenario – it definitely changes things. Everyone ultimately just wants the answers, but I think the librarian’s duty to each category of patron is different.
In an academic library, students are there to learn and part of that is learning to find answers and resources for oneself. Simply giving them the answers would do nothing for them. (Here’s my additional ethical dilemma: is it cheating to ask for the answers, or is it ingenuity? The assignment’s aim is for the student to find the answer themselves, but knowing who to ask, especially when the librarians have apparently already done the work, is a valuable lesson as well.)
In a public library, patrons come to the reference librarian for answers rather than paths to answers. If the same students chose to do the assignment at a public library, I would give them the answers – I’d try to make it a teachable moment so they’ll be equipped to find the information next time, but wouldn’t feel the same obligation to make them do it for themselves. I’ve seen too many homework questions at the reference desk to think a refusal on moral ground would be anything more than an invitation to stop using the library.
Kaylin, you and I are pretty much on the same page: in an academic library we have obligations that do not apply in a public library (and vice versa). As an academic librarian, university faculty are stakeholders in my decisions and it seems wrong to undermine the educational mission of the university (unless, of course, the assignment is fundamentally unfair). Likewise, if I were a public librarian I, like you, would give the answers for pretty much the same reasons you provide.
I like the musicology example because I know music resources pretty well. It’s likely that the majority of the questions can be answered with a handful of sources. The rest probably require much more work. For both of the procrastinating students, I would not give them the answers, but I would direct them to the couple of places that could answer the most questions. In a day or even 10 minutes, a student could make a dent in the unanswered questions with a librarian to point them in the most helpful direction. Even for a student I knew well, I would not give them the answers. I am in the business of helping people find things, not doing their homework for them. I’d be happy to tell them if they have the answer correct or to give them a not-so-subtle hint, but they’re going to have to find the answer themselves.
I’m more inclined to give the professor the answers, especially if the answer key includes references for where the answer could be found. I’d like to think that this is an instance of faculty sharing approaches and lesson plans. It is not, however, an assignment designed by the library. In this instance, I’m not so sure that the library should be responsible for sharing the work of another professor without that professor’s consent. Ideally, I’d prefer to direct the professor to contact the creator of the original assignment for the answer key.