“Library Ethics” by Jean L. Preer Essay (Book Review)

The author is emphasizing on such strong issues as a librarianship as a profession. First, i will start by defining the word profession. It means a kind of employment that meets a certain that pushes up to the standard above that of an occupation. Secondly, there is a criteria of profession of how it is formulated, for example, librarianship functions autonomously as it functions with authority in formulation of policy, it entrusts the education of its practitioners to a higher learning institutions and finally it utilizes in its functions a very well-defined and well oriented body of specialized knowledge which is on the intellectual level of learning (Preer, p. 24). Thirdly, there are features of librarianship that the author talks about and these are as follows: prerequisite of philanthropic services, in any profession the person in charge should and always be willing to serve their clients with a warmhearted attitude, good spirit and a devotion to a code of ethics. Configuration of the organization is how the library is formulated and how it functions: testing and competence of its members, custody of skills or theoretical knowledge about the librarianship. We come to find many interesting things on how the librarianship has been put to examination and has been intervene in the name of formulating and adapting its codes to ethics. The author also talks about the ethical choices the librarian makes in his/her daily life. Ethical rules of our behavior are packaged with the soft nature and require personal and subjective relation to it. For example, a librarian creates his/her relations with customers on the basis of respect. Secondly, he considers an access to information as person’s inherent right which is done freely. And he also keeps data of the users and the activities of the information confidentially, nevertheless, he assures the comfort, high quality and a variety of service through the usage of the resources of his/her organization and other resources. As you can see from the ethical rules, they are universally used and are in a full accordance with a well-known article 19 of the United Nations universal declaration of human rights. The author also expands on the issues and trends involved in librarianship and they are as follows: status and image. A librarian should always be smart and clean as well as the place of his work should be clean because they say “Cleanliness is the second to Godliness” and many customers might be attracted by the cleanliness (Preer, p. 30). The second is an issue and its all about gender; the other is a lack of licensed librarian. A professional person working in this field, a librarian, should have a serious attitude to the whole process of his/her work as it demands a great knowledge to have an idea of much information concerning the appropriate establishment. It is a risk because the librarian is not in a position to be at ease when working, he/she would always be on the lookout for the authority or the police, for instance. The author is trying to give us some limitation that the librarian has which are very many. I came to adjourn that the librarians have the hell of work to do in different situations. And, for instance, if they claim that the librarians have no domination on their activities, it simply means that one needs to be a surgeon to perform surgery when another one needs to pass the bar to practice the law. Secondly, it is worth noting that the librarianship is quite a general issue to talk about and it goes without saying that that amount of books that has been given to the usage of a librarian differs from the one that is supposed to be in the dummies. It is really ridiculous for dummies to share the same number of book for intellectual people like the librarians (Preer, p. 43). It is not even ridiculous but unbecoming. The problem is that librarians rather than having a particular quarter of knowledge actually need surface expertise of diversity of effects like administration, technology, population, development and so on. Generally, the very word “librarian” come from the appropriate word “library” which means a p[lace of the storage of many book collection and the person working in the library is simply meant to present any required information that can be asked any time and in different situation by the guests of the library. The other thing is that no one can come and say that there is a “great” librarian; in other words, am trying to say that it may happen that one goes to a typical educational center and asks the professors to give some details about a great surgeon ever known; they will tell you that there is Leo Bokeria, for an architect there is I.M. Pei’ or for a lawyer there is Johnny Cochrane. However, going on and asking them about the great librarian, they will tell you they know none and the reason is that no librarian stands out on the similar line of attack that the enormous professionals do. And no one in the library field is going to come close to naming like Leo Bokeria or somebody else like that. It is so ironic to see people talking about librarianship in such a hard way like how they do. People who should read those books are students. It is so because they should know on what to take and why this or that step may or should be taken. The reason is because many students are young, fresh, full of big dreams and expectations and librarianship does not give one that toast that live band for one to play the music of the career. So, it will help the youth to be carefully on choosing librarianship as a course because it does not offer much the way they expect. At least, with that knowledge, they will have the power to choose wisely. And the book has many shortcomings like it does highlight further on various things, for example, it does not touch on such points as status and image of the librarians and their reaction when certain things are happen to take place. I am talking about the low salary as this aspect certainly causes a low status and gives the librarian a low self-esteem and less opportunities in life including a poor image which a female figure can not be comfortable.

In conclusion, literature from books should be read by students for their academic achievements and satisfaction as means of accessing and assessing high end quality of education. Learning that is aimed on academic success have outlined mixed perception, however, some researchers state that online learning can be as much effective as traditional learning instruction. Numerous researches carried out on student contentment in online programs or courses, stated that there were both dissatisfied and satisfied students.

Work Cited

Preer, J. Library Ethics. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 2008.