CILIP | ETHICS FOR INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS - CILIP CONSULTS : Draft Code of Professional Ethics will be open for comment for four months

Draft Code of Professional Ethics will be open for comment for four months

News 04/04/03

CILIP’s Code of Professional Ethics, drawn up by a special Panel of CILIP members, has gone out for consultation and will lie on the table until the end of July.

Personal responsibilities, responsibilities for the information in their care, and further responsibilities towards information users, colleagues, the profession, employers and society are all covered in the Code. Associated with it will be a growing corpus of practical examples illustrating how information professionals and others can use the Code to cope with ethical dilemmas they may face. “The world of information work is changing rapidly,” the draft states. “Technological developments are of central importance in this change process, which is presenting important and acute ethical challenges to all who work in the field.”

“One of the distinguishing marks of a profession is that it has a code of values or ethics which its practitioners share and which guides the way they carry out their work,” says Bernard Naylor, Chair of the CILIP Ethics Panel. “In due course, we expect that CILIP's Code of Professional Ethics will take its place among numerous other similar statements which characterise the way that many self-governing professional bodies operate in the UK.”

“Librarians and other information professionals are frequently the essential link between information users, and the information or piece of literature which they require,” the Code continues. “Information professionals, therefore, occupy a privileged position which carries corresponding responsibilities, and a sensitive position which may impose a need to balance conflicting requirements.”

The long consultation period will give CILIP’s Branches and Groups the opportunity to consider and discuss the draft in the ordinary cycle of their meetings if they wish. Comments from individual members are welcomed, and the Panel also welcomes the fact that Umbrella 2003 will bring together a broad cross-section of the membership, and hopes that that event may help to progress the debate.

Information about CILIP’s draft Code of Ethics can be found on its web site at www.cilip.org.uk/about/code.html. An online feedback form is also included and the deadline for comment is the end of July 2003.

Contact
Guy Daines, Principal Policy Adviser.
Tel: 020 7255 0632
Email: guy.daines@cilip.org.uk

Notes to Editors

CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers, with around 23,500 members working in all sectors, including business and industry, science and technology, further and higher education, schools, local and central government, the health service, the voluntary sector, national and public libraries.

CILIP’s goals are to: position the profession at the heart of the information revolution; develop and enhance the role and skills of all its Members; present and champion those skills, together with new ones which will be acquired through continuing professional development; and ensure that individuals, enterprises and not for profit organisations have ready and timely access to the information they need.

Updated: 03 July 2006