THE ALA CORE VALUE STATEMENT, OR WHAT DO LIBRARIANS STAND FOR, ANYWAY?

James H. Sweetland, North American Convenor

One of the more exciting topics of the last year, and one of the hottest topics ever at the annual meeting of the American Library Association has been the "Core Values" issue. In essence, the intent is to develop one, fairly simple and succinct statement of a set of values which would represent �the librarian�; a set of values which apply to all types of libraries, and all functions within all libraries.

The process began in 1998, after some months of discussions related to library education. While there are many threads involved, the main topics appear to have been four: the apparent trend for schools to drop the word "Library" from their names; the apparent trend away from core "library" skills, notably cataloging, to be taught; a growing shortage of professionals to work with many specific groups, including children and the disadvantaged, and an apparent "disjuncture" between the Library/Information Science programs and some major employers.

Thus, in September, 1998 the ALA Executive Board decided to deal with all the threads by setting up a "Summit" conference, which was later titled the Congress on Professional Education.

The Congress actually convened in late April of 1999 in Washington, D. C. with over 150 delegates. These represented not only the major committees and divisions of ALA, but also delegates from many of library and information organizations, library (and similar) schools, and library students. The delegates heard formal papers, read a considerable amount of material, and engaged in intense discussion.

Out of this Congress came five major recommendations:

• Define the Scope, Content, and Values of the Profession;
• Establish and Apply Standards for Accreditation;
• Enabling Credentialing and Continuing Education;
• Position Librarianship as the Twentieth Century Profession; and
• Continue the Dialogue between Educators and Practitioners.

During the course of the Task Force�s deliberations, it received over 800 emails on the subject, which also generated vehement discussion on several list servers and other communication forums. The list of core values, itself, went through five drafts, with several variants of the statement still suggested even by the Task Force members itself.

While the drafts, and the topic, had been items for discussion at ALA Midwinter in January, 2000, the presentation of the final draft drew the largest audience to a formal membership meeting since 1994. After discussion at this meeting, and a similarly heated discussion at the Council (ALA�s governing body), the Council decided to accept the report, and in effect, begin the process all over again, with more input from the membership.

The most important objection was to the lack both of the term "intellectual freedom" and of a clear statement of its principles. Earlier drafts had included the value of "unfettered access to ideas", a phrase which was later removed. Many ALA members, far beyond the membership of the intellectual freedom committees and roundtables, felt that the lack of a clear statement of intellectual freedom as a "core" value made the entire document unacceptable. In fact, from Council debate, it would appear that this issue was what led to, in effect, the rejection of the document.

While at least some members of the Task Force clearly did not appear to think so, the consensus of commentators was that the change from the earlier drafts, and the lack of the use of a commonly-accepted term represented a retreat from what many feel is a fundamental purpose of librarianship, and of the Association itself. Whether or not there was actually an attempt to soft-pedal this concept in view of current attacks on librarianship in the United States, certainly the membership of the Association felt so.

There were, of course, other issues. Among these were a number of comments that the statement lacked any �fire� that it was too bland, or that it was too general to serve any useful purpose. Intriguingly, in view of the statement�s origins in the COPE, there were also concerns that the statement might unduly influence the accreditation of library educational programs.

Thus, although the American Library Association has existed since 1876 (making it the oldest national library association in the world), at present it still has not been able to produce a single consensus document representing a set of values which it feels represents all librarians. While this discussion continues, however, a second Congress on Professional Education (focusing on continuing education) will meet in November 2000, other task forces appear to be working on other recommendations of the first Congress, and there is a growing movement to revise the current (1992) Standards For Accreditation, or at least the process for applying these standards.

In view of all this, an historical note is in order. When a number of U. S. library leaders discussed holding a national library conference in 1876 (the conference which led to the founding of the ALA), some others objected that there was no need, since a similar conference had been held in the early 1850s, and it was unlikely that there had been enough changes in the profession to justify another meeting in only a generation.

For full reports and the final documents of the Congress on Professional Education, see http://www.ala.org/congress/

For the current version of the Core Values Statement, see http://www.ala.org/congresses/corevalues/draft5.html

A discussion of the issues involved, not limited to the ALA statement, is "A Search for Core Values: Towards a Model Code of Ethics for Information Professionals" Journal of Information Ethics 9, 1 (Spring 2000): 26-54.

Another discussion, from the point of view of public libraries, is in the special issue, Public Libraries 38 no. 4 (July/August 1999)

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