Values may be defined as "generalized abstract ideas held by human individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good or bad" (Allan 1993). In this century, the core values of librarianship have included intellectual freedom, open and free access to information, and resistance to censorship. The advent of the Information Age has brought other ethical issues to the attention of librarians. Globalization and rapidly changing technology are forcing the library profession to rethink its mission and responsibilities. Technology has and will continue to have an enormous effect on how information is accessed, retrieved, and built into knowledge. Previously accepted values are being challenged.

Are there universal values for librarians? In their review of library ethics and values literature, Dole and Hurych (2001) conclude that there are no standard definitions for those ethics and values. Kirk and Poston-Anderson (1992) report that there is no agreement on the meaning of the term "value" and its relationship to other concepts (such as attitude, need, interest, preference, motive and life style) and whether there is a set of universal values, relevant to all people regardless of cultural background.

Core professional values have been addressed in the literature (see e.g. Hauptman 1991, Stichler and Hauptman 1998, Devlin and Miller 1995, Johnson 1994, Intner and Schement 1987, Baker 1992, Rubin 1991, Ford 1998, Hisle 1998, and Symons and Stoffle 1998;Rubin and Froelich 1996; Koehler and Pemberton 2000). These include privacy, selection and censorship, reference, intellectual property rights, administration, access, technology, loyalties, and social issues.

Although there have been a number of surveys on library ethics, there have been only a few surveys on librarians’ values. There are exceptions, see Yerkey (1979), Kirk and Poston-Anderson (1988), Hovekamp (1994), Allen (1998), and Branch (1998). We adopted and modified the Branch questionnaire (Dole and Hurych 2001; Dole, Hurych, and Koehler 1999).

Like the studies that precede this one (Branch 1998; Dole and Hurych 2001), this too has an informal research design. Data were collected by classes or types of librarian professions. This study, like Dole and Hurych's, seeks also to determine whether different patterns can be established among countries, but it is not limited to North American and Commonwealth of Independent States librarians.

The questionnaire was distributed via the librarians' "invisible college." Each of the authors sent survey copies either as an email attachment or in printed format to colleagues throughout the world. We then requested those colleagues to forward them to others. Two additional potential sources of bias were thus introduced. Since the authors are academic librarians and a library school faculty member, we tend to have more contacts in those circles than in others. Second, while many colleagues did distribute our questionnaire, they tended to do so within their own immediate contact circles.

Table 1 provides the sample distribution by librarian professions. It is dominated by responses from academic librarians (38.5%), but eleven other professions are included as well.

Previous studies have addressed the academic librarian. They uniformly conclude that patron service ranks first among value choices. This finding is consistent for example with studies of ethical codes of the information professions. Koehler and Pemberton (2000) show that patron service is almost uniformly included in the codes of ethics developed by a wide range of professional societies worldwide. It is true that of the eleven library professions reported here, patron service is identified by the respondent as a first order concern.

Table 2 presents the ethical values maintained by the professions in three ways and ranks the values for each profession according to the order each profession selects them by three different measures. The column labeled "three priority values" indicates the three values, regardless of order, identified as most important by each professional cohort. The column labeled "first priority value" indicates the value most frequently identified as the most important value. The third column, "emphasis" provides those values with the highest "average" scores for each value.

Table 2 suggests that the ethical values that information professional identify as important can be divided into two classes: those which are universally held to be important and those which are selectively identified. We avoid classing these as "major" and "minor" values in part because of the methodological ambiguity of this study, but also because of the difficulties inherent in asking any professional to rank order his or her own values. Those values identified as primary are those found in the last row of Table 2, "All Professionals." These are, in order of values most frequently classed by professionals: service to the patron, intellectual freedom, preservation of the record, and equality of access. Information literacy is also frequently so identified. The remaining values are considered important but not nearly so universally.

Librarian ethical principles can be examined on a country-by-country basis. Dole and Hurych (2001) found, for example, similarities between the ethical values held by North American and Commonwealth of Independent States librarians. Our survey, keeping in mind its methodological limitations, finds both commonalties and differences among librarians by region. Thirteen countries are represented in this study Table 3 presents these countries, in some cases collapsed by region, by the distribution of the ethical values examined in this paper.

As is shown in Table 3, "service to patron" is the "first" principle among librarians worldwide. There is also uniformity of agreement for "equity of access" and "intellectual freedom." These three ethical values may represent a universal set of primary principles.

There may also exist a set of principles that are regionally differentiated. If the countries and regions represented in Table 3 can be divided into groups, they are perhaps best differentiated between developed and under-developed regions or to what some refer to as the first and third worlds. We can class the Asian countries surveyed and South Africa as among the third and the rest as first world. Third world respondents appear to place greater emphasis on literacy/information literacy values than do first world respondents. On the other hand, first world respondents tend to emphasize "preservation of the record."

We suspect that this differentiation between first and third world respondents may be associated with the pressures of social and economic development in some parts of the world and the perhaps overwhelming need to manage existing information in other parts. In particular, issues of access and literacy are paramount in developing countries. According to UN statistics (1999) there is a vast literacy gulf between first and third world literacy rates. Necessarily third world librarians must address literacy issues and consequently these concerns rise to ethical imperatives.

Other studies have shown that patron service is the ethical value most often identified by academic librarians in North America and in the CIS countries. Our survey extends those findings to include much of the English-speaking world. It compares well with those findings for most library professions and particularly academic librarians.

Unlike the earlier studies, we expanded our subject audience from academic librarians to the various library professions. We demonstrate that there is differentiation of values among the librarian and information professions. We believe this differentiation to be a function of the roles and responsibilities of the various professions. We are not suggesting that function dictates ethical values for library professionals. Rather, function specifies emphasis and order. It should come as no surprise that archivists identify "preservation of the record" as important or that primary and secondary school librarians place a higher priority on literacy issues than do other library professionals. On the whole, library professionals maintain in the main similar ethical values. These are, in order of values most frequently classed by professionals: service to the patron, intellectual freedom, preservation of the record, and equality of access. Information literacy is also frequently so identified. The remaining values are considered important but not nearly so universally.

There is a differentiation of values among countries. The divide appears to be between developed and developing countries. We believe the needs of librarians in different countries to respond to a very different set of economic and social conditions are responsible for these observations.

We are unable to offer theory much less plausible hypotheses to explain many of the similarities and differences we have found among librarians. This is due in part because our sample is not adequately comprehensive to permit us to perform statistically valid tests. It is possible that some of the trends we identify are spurious and will not withstand more rigorous testing. We believe, however, that we have identified some interesting trends among library professions and among world regions. These conclusions can be summarized as follows:

• Nearly all librarians everywhere identify patron service as their first order ethical principle. Most also identify intellectual freedom, preservation of the record, equality of access, and information literacy as among these values.
• Where differences occur among library professions, these are probably a function of the different information roles and responsibilities of these information professionals.
• Where differences occur among library professionals in different countries and regions, these differences are probably a function of the responsibilities and concerns generated by the social and economic development status of the region or country.

Our data and research methods raise more questions than they answer. We understand that and we understand the limitations of our findings. Further research is required. We propose to do it.

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