[n.b. this post was originally written for Re:Generations, the blog for new academic librarians that is organized by CACUL at the CLA. Be sure to surf over there to join in the fun! -ms]

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How often do you think about ethics in the workplace? I’ve been reading some Robert Hauptman this week, and information ethics is a small hobby of mine, so lately I’ve been thinking about this question a lot. As important as ethics are to our field, Hauptman routinely suggests (and I’d agree with him) that we don’t usually consider why a proper action is proper and a wrong decision is bad. Rather, since we’re mostly all good people working on our best behaviour, rarely do problems occur.

Generally, we tend to get by on our best behaviour within librarianship, especially since so many of us believe in things like open access, open source and the stewardship of knowledge. But still I wonder, how often should we think about ethics in the workplace? If we work to serve the public interest in one form or another (as most of us do), should we not think every now and again about the implications of our actions and our opinions on the profession and on society?

We don’t have to be expert ethicists to consider how ethics affects librarianship and the workplace. It would be useful to remind ourselves from time to time, though, that the ethics of the workplace and the ethics of the profession won’t always agree with our own. Every so often we must take an action at work that might require a negotiation of our personal values with the values of our employer as well as the values of librarianship. Conflicts might arise between ourselves and a colleague or between ourselves and the organization because of these negotiations, which will themselves have to be mediated. What counts is how we mediate these conflicts and how we arrive at outcomes amenable to ourselves and to the organization.

Hauptman often argues that ultimately our personal values must override the values of the employer and of the profession. This, of course, is easier said than done, especially for so many of us who are situated in our first contracts or have moved so far away for employment and no longer have a strong network of friends and family to help us get by. Have you had a values-based dilemma at work? If so, how did you resolve it, and how did it affect you?

When I first got into librarianship, I wasn’t really bothered by the fact that some people wanted to call the profession, “information science” whereas others demanded to hold fast to the “librarianship” moniker. I thought both sides were being petty: I figured that people who wanted to be “librarians” felt that “knowledge managers” should enroll in a different graduate programme, and that those who wanted to be in knowledge management felt that the people who were focused on libraries were outdated luddites who ought to get with the times. Although I was uninformed of the politics at play within the profession, I figured this was all a question of staking ground through semantics and nothing more.

Maybe it is still a question of semantics, but nowadays I’ve taken a stand and have grown tired of the demand to rebrand this profession as “information science.” I’ve wondered what has changed so much that a new term had to be created, or if the profession has moved so far or altered its course so much that it has completely outgrown the words, “librarian” and “librarianship”. But I don’t think we’ve moved so far away to require such a rebranding. In spite of my own biases (I’m a librarian, and I work in libraries), I’m willing to contend that even though the tools around us have changed dramatically, as well as our methods, the profession’s mission remains remarkably similar today to what it was fifty years ago, let alone a century ago, well before the time of Ranganathan. Librarians organize information, locate it for themselves and for others, store and preserve it for the community, and therein help nurture the creation of knowledge in society. This much has remained present in the profession, before and after MARC, before and after the Internet, before, during, and even well after the emergence of our Network(ed) Society.

The fact that my peers rely on OPACs and something as close to a union catalogue that has yet been created as opposed to card catalogues doesn’t change the fact that librarians have always used novel means to store, organize, and retrieve information. The fact that today’s MLIS or MLS graduate should have at least a smattering of IT courses on her transcript doesn’t remove her too far the “old days” when the tools at hand were limited to punch cards and MARC records. That we analyze government policy and its effects on wider society is no different from calling for better literacy rates in the early twentieth century. That we defend basic civic rights such as security and privacy of the person, and of a right to speak, think, and read freely, is not removed from our profession’s vital defence of similar basic rights throughout the twentieth century. History shows us that librarianship has always focused on information science and information studies even though we didn’t always call it by those terms.

I’m not completely averse to the idea that we must change the name of our profession. If the wise sages amoung us have decided that perhaps a new moniker is necessary to better promote our professional ideals and standards, then to a certain degree I’m willing to give them a certain benefit of the doubt (note well the double-qualifier in that sentence). However, I still question what our profession might lose by effacing itself of the historic and symbolic value inherent in the terms, “librarian” and “librarianship.” Yes, there will always be unacceptable stereotypes for us to constantly battle, like the bee-hived and bespectacled “shushing” grandmother-librarian, or the equally unacceptable and misogynistic “sexy librarian” trope, but these are merely paltry issues that linger within terms that otherwise carry an incredible gravitas in the profession and within western culture. To deny ourselves of the use of “librarian” is to rob ourselves of our culture’s understanding and respect for the role we play in society. Libraries and Librarians are often the lynchpins of communities and the storehouses of a local culture’s social history. Removing Librar* from our profession in favor of the clinical “information science” is to destroy the link that we have to the people we serve. Let us not forget that.

Call it “information science” if you will. But keep “librarianship” close at hand. I simply ask you to consider what you tell new acquaintances what you do for a living or to which profession you belong when you consider this issue. Rarely do we say, “I work in information science,” or “I am an information scientist”. No, we tell people we’re librarians, and that we work in libraries, archives, and museums. “Librarian” is not a dirty word, and neither is “Librarianship.” Embrace what you are, and proudly tell people what you do for a living and for society as a whole – they’ll respect for you it. I promise.

I’ve been working this summer on a student/intern contract at the Patrick Power Library at Saint Mary’s University, here in Halifax. I’ve joined the Information Literacy crew as well as the Research and Reference team, and right now I think it’s safe to say, “So far, so good”. I’ve met some good people, learned a few things, and shared a few others. I’m happy, and I think they’re happy, so we’re all smiles.

One project I have been working on extensively is the development of audio and video screencasts for the library. I’ve gotten my hands dirty by working with Adobe Captivate and one of my favourite pieces of GNU GPL software – Audacity. For the record, Audacity is a lean, mean, sound-engineering machine, but I find Captivate incredibly difficult to use. I’m a seasoned tech-geek veteran and can catch on to different pieces of software fairly quick, but all that I quickly learned about Captivate is that its functionality and GUI are finicky. I think the software needs a re-boot, but that’s a thought for some other post.

What I’ve quickly learned about screencasting, however, is that one should aim high but never aim for perfection when working with audio and video. There is no such thing as a perfect-10 when you’re developing screencasts that are primed for smart devices like iPhones or similar LG or RIM products. Although it’s easy to be critical of our own work, we need to stay focused on releasing a finished product in a timely manner. Always remember that most small glitches or hiccups are barely noticeable on small screens or will generally be overlooked in the grand scheme of things. That’s not to say that one should throw production value out the window so much as it is to suggest that it’s okay if the hex color code you though you wanted was one micro-shade lighter than you expected.

When it comes to screencasts, we need think “gestalt”. We need to think “big picture” and be focused on the aim of the product. Most screencasts are small 1-3 minute wayfinding guides, so it won’t be the end of the world if you mumble your way through “open access electronic databases” on every take when laying down your audio.

So whether or not you use Captivate, Camtasia, or even Wink (long live freeware!), try to keep the following ideas in mind. Aim for elegance, but also aim for efficiency:

1. Measure Twice, Cut Once.

We all may know this slogan from our own favourite home design shows, but its message is definitely applicable to screencasting. Before you capture screens, before you record your audio, and before you start toying with images in GIMP, make sure you’ve created a game plan. It doesn’t matter if you make a story board or a script or hash out a linear map of your slides – just make sure you’ve thought about the message you have to deliver as well as how you’re going to deliver it.

2. Kill your babies.

I cribbed this little saying from some journalist-friends. You will almost certainly fall in love with your subject matter and its delivery, especially in your first few attempts at its design. Now, be prepared to chop it into pieces. Your subject matter and the screencast itself will be worthless if you lose the interest of the user, so always think about how you can reduce your content without losing context. Remember: the revisions you make to the screencast will make it stronger and better. Have one point and one point alone, and keep to it.

3. You do not have a professionally trained voice.

Micromanaging audio will waste your day and delay the development of your next subject, so when it comes to audio, just make the cut and be done with it. Making five or six or even seven takes of one paragraph to make sure you sound “just right” is going waste your time. Instead, create a simple production key for each section of audio. First, take one or two practice runs of the section you’re recording just to be sure that the language is simple and that your pronunciation is on track. Then, make two – no more than three takes – of the section which are free of serious glitches. Don’t worry if you think you’ve paused too long between sentences or if your voice tailed off at a comma because in all likelihood you are the only person who will notice these minor infractions. Ultimately, all the takes are going to sound virtually the same to the first-time listener, so take the cut and move on.

Long live the screencast.