Library school curriculum

Not focus on information, but focus on

People
1. Personal morality and professional ethics2. The helping relationship
3. Structures and institutions of society & the role of professionals
4. Understanding "the information society" in context of other social revolutions
5. Information ethics and information policy

Skills
1. Cataloging
2. Collection management
3. Reference
4. Library leadership & management
5. Instruction & information literacy

Libraries and porn

Whether or not a librarian thinks porn is harmless or thinks that individuals have a right to access any information they want, they must remember first that they are given authority by a community, and here "prevailing public morality" is quite relevant. That is, you're discredited by most members of the community if you allow unbridled access to pornography on your public computers, just as you would be if you stocked pornography as part of the collection.

Perhaps someday American society will not be so afraid of sexuality, but that is not the case now. Remember your civic and fiduciary responsibilities, aside from your primary responsibility which actually rules out access to porn anyway. That is, reading for education. Entertainment, especially sheerly titillating entertainment, is a tertiary responsibility, and, as entertainment falls into aesthetics, one should follow the guides of public morality rather than minority or individual tastes, and censor accordingly.

Library as nexuspoint: revitalization of civic values

What better place to initiate a real social movement towards the revitalization of civic values than the public library? It is the nexuspoint of disciplines, interests and peoples - class, race, even literacy level become irrelevant as the library welcomes all where you stand.

We idealize the 1950s because they were on the right track: we live in an interconnected society in which the primary value, the goal of morality, should be promotion of human flourishing. Professionals all need a reorientation towards that value. Libraries should lead society not because "they have a lot of information" but because they too share human flourishing as a primary value.