THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA SCHOOL OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

Considered [and adopted] by the full faculty of SLIS on Wednesday 1 May 2013, as part of the faculty’s continuing planning for articulating its relationship to CUA’s mission.

Complementary to its statements of vision and mission, and of the professional competencies it espouses for its students, the School of Library and Information Science affirms its dedication to the foundational principles that inform the library and information science profession, and to articulating the relationship between those principles and the heritage of Catholic social teaching.

As the academic unit providing professional education in library and information science at the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States, we embrace as an integral part of our mission the importance of seeking opportunities for collaborative and service initiatives with Catholic institutions and constituencies.

In addition, we emphasize the following foundational principles of our profession, as articulated in the codes of ethics of the major American professional associations (see Appendix A), as guiding our collective understanding of our mission. We believe that juxtaposing them with a contextual understanding of Catholic social teaching enriches our teaching and research in a way that is distinctive to our programs (see Appendix B for some pertinent reference texts).

1. Access to information

2. Cultural heritage and its preservation

3. Intellectual property

Access to information

Library and information science professionals serve humanity by promoting equitable access to information, and education about its availability and how to identify and understand it. They do so in recognition that such access is a prerequisite for participation in civic society and in cultural and social life, and also in light of technological change that increasingly affects the provision of health care, education, and legal and other services. In particular, they promote education, advocacy, and outreach, so that “access” is not limited merely to passive availability, but rather extends to information and media literacy.

Catholic social teaching likewise recognizes that access to information is necessary for full and informed citizenship and human fulfillment, in line with its fundamental advocacy for the basic human dignity of the individual. In particular it recognizes that unequal access to information – including inequality of access stemming from discrimination, poverty, or adverse political circumstances – damages the fundamental principle of solidarity.

Cultural heritage and its preservation

Library and information science professionals serve humanity by preserving and making available the materials for understanding the respective heritages of societies, institutions, and individuals. We understand “cultural heritage” to have a very wide definition, as the inheritance of human knowledge, whose preservation is an obligation to future generations, and for purposes of study in the future that may not be obvious to the present. They do so with the conviction that understanding of cultural heritage is necessary for full engagement in society.

Catholic social teaching emphasizes that the cultural heritage of a people is integral to their identity and their human dignity, and that knowledge of and access to it is essential to their integrity. It recognizes the plurality of global heritages and the ways in which modern society has both encouraged encounters between cultures and endangered some of them. The heritage of the Catholic Church itself and the various nations and cultures of different Catholic populations comprise a topic of particular importance for the Church’s advocacy of cultural heritage.

Intellectual property

Library and information science professionals understand that intellectual property rights may inhere in the creators of information and they are dedicated to safeguarding those rights, while recognizing that doing so may require a balancing of the rights of information creators with those of library and information users.

Catholic social teaching has a rich and complex understanding of the nature of a “good”, which in this case means any thing in which property rights may inhere. It recognizes that economic and technological change has altered the nature of “goods”, and in particular has made immeasurably more prevalent goods that are the product of intellectual work and creativity, or in other words information broadly construed. Catholic social teaching upholds the principle of individual ownership of goods, but also – as part of its understanding of the common good – the principle that all as goods flow from creation, so too they ultimately belong to humankind, and refers to this principle under the concept of the “universal destiny of the goods of the earth.” In this way it echoes the need for library and information science professionals to balance the rights of information creators with rights of access to information by others. Appendix A. Sources of statements of foundational principles for the library and information science profession.

American Library Association (ALA), Code of Ethics http://www.ala.org/advocacy/proethics/codeofethics/codeethics

Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), Professional Guidelines http://www.asis.org/AboutASIS/professional-guidelines.html

Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), Code of Ethical Business Practice http://www.aiip.org/content/code-ethical-business-practices

Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), Position Statement on Information Ethics in LIS Education http://www.alise.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51

Society of American Archivists, (SAA) Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics http://www2.archivists.org/statements/saa-core-values-statement-and-code-of-ethics Appendix B. Sources of statements from Catholic social thought regarding access to information, cultural heritage, and intellectual property.

1. Access to information

“Information is among the principal instruments of democratic participation… It is likewise necessary to facilitate conditions of equality in the possession and use of these instruments… Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity… The essential question is whether the current information system is contributing to the betterment of the human person: that is, does it make people more spiritually mature, more aware of the dignity of their humanity, more responsible or more open to others, in particular to the neediest and the weakest. A further aspect of great importance is the requisite that new technologies respect legitimate cultural differences.”

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 414-15.

“The Holy See recognizes the right to information and its importance in the life of all democratic societies and institutions. The exercise of the freedom of communication should not depend upon wealth, education, or political power. The right to communicate is the right of all. Freedom of expression and the right to information increase and develop in societies when the fundamental ethics of communication are not compromised, such as the pre-eminence of truth and the good of the individual, the respect for human dignity, and the promotion of the common good.

“Furthermore, new technologies have an important role to play in the advancement of the poor. As with health and education, access to the wealth represented by communications would certainly benefit the poor, as recipients of information to be sure, but also as actors, able to promote their own point of view before the world’s decision makers.”

INTERVENTION BY THE HOLY SEE AT THE FOURTH COMMISSION OF THE 60th SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS New York, 13 October 2005 ON ITEM 33: "QUESTIONS RELATING TO INFORMATION"

2. Cultural heritage and its preservation “The social and political involvement of the lay faithful in the area of culture moves today in specific directions. The first is that of seeking to guarantee the right of each person to a human and civil culture, in harmony with the dignity of the human person, without distinction of race, sex, nation, religion, or social circumstances… At the root of the poverty of so many people are also various forms of cultural deprivation and the failure to recognize cultural rights.”

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 557.

“Therefore, Venerable Brothers and beloved children, human society must primarily be considered something pertaining to the spiritual. Through it, in the bright light of truth men should share their knowledge, be able to exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations, be inspired to seek spiritual values, mutually derive genuine pleasure from the beautiful of whatever order it be, always be readily disposed to pass on to others the best of their own cultural heritage and eagerly strive to make their own the spiritual achievements of others. These benefits not only influence, but at the same time give aim and scope to all that has bearing on cultural expressions, economic and social institutions, political movements and forms, laws, and all other structures by which society is outwardly established and constantly developed.”

Pacem in terris (1963), sec. 36.

3. Intellectual property

“Private property is an essential element of an authentically social and democratic economic policy, and it is the guarantee of a correct social order…

“The present historical period has placed at the disposal of society new goods that were completely unknown until recent times. This calls for a fresh reading of the principle of the universal destination of the goods of the earth and makes it necessary to extend this principle so that it includes the latest developments brought about by economic and technological progress… the wealth of the industrialized nations is based much more on this kind of ownership than on natural resources.”

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 176, 179.