digital divide Accessibility

Ethical and Equity Issues

Ethics and Practice

As practicing professionals we are guided by ethical and equity considerations. Our professional associations provide us with guidelines for practice that are pertinent in a discussion of the bibliographic management of Web documents. There are two sets of issues reflected here. The first is an obligation is "to do what we do do well." The second is to make what we do available to our patrons and clients on a non-discriminatory basis.

American Library Association Code of Ethics. Available: http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ethics.html. The first tenet of the ALA Code of Ethics requires equitable service and access:

"We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests."

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Available: http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html. Under its first title, General Moral Imperatives, ACM members are charged to (1.1) "Contribute to society and human well-being" and (1.2) "Avoid harm to others." Based on the ACM commentary for these two points, it is arguable that ACM members have a general and specific obligation to design and manage digital information within their professional obligations to the benefit of all. Section 1.4 "Be fair and take action not to discriminate" specifically cites non discrimination "in the use of computer resources" on the basis of " race, sex, religion, age, disability, national origin or other such similar factors."
American Society of Indexers, Indexing Evaluation Checklist. Available: http://www.asindexing.org./checklist.shtml

"The Index is the KEY to the book"
"An index is not an outline, nor is it a concordance. It’s an intelligently compiled list of topics covered in the work, prepared with the reader’s needs in mind."

These two quotes from the ASI suggest an additional set of considerations specific for the indexer. These carry over to the indexer and cataloger of the WWW. An index or catalog record is a key, a pointer to intellectual material. To be useful, it must be organized intelligently and it must be appropriate to the user. While not so identified by the ASI, these too are ethical considerations.

For additional examples of professional codes of ethics and practice, see: Ethics Links to Librarian and Information ManagerAssociations WWW Pages Available: http://books.valdosta.peachnet.edu/mlis/ethics/EthicsBibOrg.htm

Disabilities

There are any number of disabilities that make using the WWW difficult or impossible for many people to use it. These include blindness, color blindness, deafness, dyxlesia, and other impairments. There are design elements that can ease these impairments. Some of these are all text parallel pages, the avoidance of certain colors for background or foreground, limited use of motion, as well as use of alternative text underlying graphics, writing to the reading level of the intended audience, use of fonts and point size, and so on. The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) marks a number of graphics that appear on its pages with a d.Thed is a hypertext link to a text description of the graphic (see http://www.cast.org/bobby/). As you will note, through out this document I frequently provide the full URL for external links. This is done for three reasons: to make the URL available for those who make "hard copy," to give the reference directly, and to provide the information to those who may have a problem with hypertext.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) supports a policy entitled Web Accessibility Issues or WAI. It defines its mission as:

The W3C's commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), in coordination with organizations around the world, is pursuing accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education & outreach, and research & development. Source: http://www.w3.org/WAI/

There are services available that can automatically evaluate a Web site to determine if it meets accessibility guidelines. See for example: Bobby available at http://www.cast.org/bobby/.

If you are an information provider over the Internet, might you be required to comply with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act or similar legislation in other jurisdictions? Well, maybe. Take a look at the following Web sites:

City of San Jose, World Wide Web Page Disability Access Design Standards, Revised August 12, 1998. Available: http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/oaacc/disacces.html

Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) Available: http://www.cast.org/, particularly CAST - Resources - Disability - Web Accessibility available: http://dev.cast.org/resources/resources.cfm?searchby=level2&level1_ID=3&level2_ID=13 for a list of on-line resources.

Judy Brewer, Policies Relating to Web Accessibility, W3C, last updated February 10, 2000. Available: http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Policy

Digital Divide

The Digital Divide defines two separate but related social and ethical issues. The first is a question of information and digital literacy equity within countries, the second is information and digital literacy equity between countries. Both relate to "haves" and "have nots." It is argued that those who have access to information and who are digital literate are creating a gap between themselves and those who do not and are not.

It can be argued that there are degrees of "digital division." Some of us are more literate and some of us have access to more advanced hardware and software. Perhaps one cannot design Web documents for those who are information illiterate or who have no access to computers or the the Internet, but one can design for those whose knowledge or equipment is minimal.

A number of standards have been proposed and are incorporated as part of the technical issues and the W3C/WAI discussed above. In sum, the argument goes, one should design Web documents as well as the catalogs that describe them with the end user in mind. Part of that consideration necessarily must be those who are on both sides of the digital divide.

For more on the digital divide, see

Closing the Digital Divide, available at: http://www.digitaldivide.gov/

Benton Foundation, Bridging the Digital Divide available at: http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/

Implications

Equity issues effect the management and bibliographic control of the Web is several ways. Recall the Colomb article that argues for multiple indexes for the Web. Indeed, catalogs and indexes can be designed for those with limited digital literacy or access to equipment and the Internet.

ethics...equity

What are our professional ethical and equity obligations as they relate to management of WWW resources?

To what extent are we required to accommodate the disabled or the disadvantaged? What are some of the things we can do to facilitate the use of our products and services?

Should we make certian that everything we do on the WWW is "Bobby" compliant?