Presentation
Ethics and Judgments of Value in Library Science
Praxis Program of the Advanced Seminar on Mission and Jean de Passy Ecole, Paris, France,
(2019)
Abstract
Phrases such as “the value of the library” and “return on investment” abound in the world of academic libraries, typically associated with attempts to increase or at least maintain funding. We use such strategies to cope with the expanding commercialization and demands for assessment in higher education ordained by those Bernard Lonergan calls the educationalists: the “group that has the power and the money, that runs the bureaucracy, that makes the decisions”.1 As a result, library “value” is often calculated in dollar terms, or measured in terms of variables such as student retention or grades. The third “frame” of the American College & Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education is that “information has value (as a commodity, as a means of education, as a means to influence, and as a means of negotiating and understanding the world”). 2 While this sounds like more in the same economic vein, the associated “knowledge practices” include giving credit to “the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation” and “understand[ing] how and why some individuals or groups … may be underrepresented or systematically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information”. These are ethical propositions that involve value judgements, particularly the observation that students should be encouraged to “examine their own information privilege”.
Disciplines
Publication Date
May 23, 2019
Location
Jean de Passy Ecole, Paris, France
Citation Information
Lisa M Rose-Wiles. "Ethics and Judgments of Value in Library Science" Praxis Program of the Advanced Seminar on Mission and Jean de Passy Ecole, Paris, France, (2019) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/lisa_rose_wiles/55/
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