Accounting giant Ernst & Young admits its employees cheated on ethics exams; NPR, June 28, 2022

JACQUELINE GANUN , NPR; Accounting giant Ernst & Young admits its employees cheated on ethics exams

Ernst & Young, one of the top accounting firms in the world, is being fined $100 million by federal regulators after admitting its employees cheated on their ethics exams. 

For years, the firm's auditors had cheated to pass key exams that are needed for certified public accountant licenses, the Securities and Exchange Commission found. Ernst & Young also had internal reports about the cheating but didn't disclose the wrongdoing to regulators during the investigation.

"It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things," Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, said in a release. 

The fine is the largest penalty ever imposed by the SEC on an audit firm. 

The CPA, or certified public accountant, licenses are needed by auditors to evaluate the financial statements of companies and ensure they are complying with laws.

However, the SEC says that a "significant number" of Ernst & Young audit professionals specifically cheated on the ethics component of the CPA exams that were required for their accounting jobs."

Anatomy of a Book Banning; The Washington Post, June 24, 2022

Dave Eggers, The Washington Post; Anatomy of a Book Banning

A South Dakota school district planned to destroy Dave Eggers’s novel. He went to investigate.

[Kip Currier: The 6/24/22 Washington Post article, Anatomy of a Book Banning, is an extraordinarily thought-provoking, illluminating "call-to-action" perspective by noted author Dave Eggers (The Circle, 2013). This article -- a proverbial "canary in the coal mine" on censorship realities and exigencies in present-day American school districts -- is relevant to all information professionals. This first-hand account also sheds light on a variety of stakeholders and communities, with particular pertinence to school libraries, teachers, students, parents, and all societal members concerned about informed citizenries and civil liberties.

Although information professionals are increasingly being asked to do more with less resources, less time, less compensation, less acknowledgement -- experiencing burgeoning compassion fatigue and the trauma of library work -- I would suggest we need to think even more strategically, both short-term and longitudinally, about what we can do to add our voices, ideas, passions, stories, and expertise to these bedrock issues of intellectual freedom, access to information, and the right to self-determination and pursuit of each person's happiness. To that end, more of us may need to consider running for and serving on school boards and other boards that make consequential decisions about many information-related matters that are within the wheelhouses and bailiwicks of librarians, archivists, data/information/computing/museum professionals. Or getting more involved in getting behind candidates and already-serving members of boards who support and lead on the kinds of issues that are integral to us and implicated by stories like this one by Dave Eggers.]

"South Dakota’s Codified Law 22-24-27 prevents the distribution to minors of sexually explicit material that is “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Given that all five books are literary works that have only a few pages (or just a few paragraphs) of sexual content, the law does not apply in this case. Court rulings, including Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), have further found that books cannot be removed from school libraries simply because certain individuals think they’re offensive.

Unspoken in much of the debate is that the vast majority of books assigned to high-schoolers also contain material that would probably be deemed objectionable under the same standards. The students of Rapid City are still allowed to read “Oedipus Rex,” in which the protagonist kills his father and then sleeps with his mother. They are still allowed to read “The Great Gatsby,” which contains alcoholism, adultery and murder. “Romeo and Juliet,” which remains on reading lists and on the shelves of all three Rapid City public high school libraries, centers on a torrid love affair between teenagers, both of whom kill themselves." 

Most judges in survey support U.S. Supreme Court having ethics code; Reuters, June 22, 2022

 Reuters; Most judges in survey support U.S. Supreme Court having ethics code

"Hundreds of judges nationwide believe that U.S. Supreme Court justices should be subject to an ethics code, according to a poll released Wednesday, with one saying they should set a "very high bar for the rest of us to emulate."

The National Judicial College, which provides training to judges nationally, said that in a survey of more than 12,000 of its alumni, 97% of the 859 judges who responded agreed Supreme Court justices should be bound by an ethics code."

Mid-Columbia Libraries asks for community response; KNDO 23, KNDU 25, May 31, 2022

Karlee Van de Venter,

KNDO 23, KNDU 25; Mid-Columbia Libraries asks for community response

"Mid-Columbia Libraries launched an online survey in Benton, Franklin and Adams counties on May 31 to get community opinions on library services. For the next three weeks, people can take the 18-question survey in English or Spanish and be entered to win an iPad mini. 

Anyone over 18 who lives in a city served by Mid-Columbia Libraries can take the survey, along with people living in certain other areas like unincorporated communities and branch visitors. 

While supplies last, you can pick up a free book bag at your nearest branch for completing the survey. 

“We’re asking our communities to help shape the future of their local libraries,” said Mid-Columbia Libraries advocacy and development manager, Sara Schwan. “Our communities created these libraries. They pay for these libraries. So we need to continue providing not just resources, but the right resources, based on community feedback, in the right venues and with ease of access.” 

The survey looks at demographic characteristics and asks people to rate how important certain influences are to their quality of life, like cultural diversity, educational opportunities, social connections, resource access and others. 

The survey was created after nine focus groups and town halls. It is aimed at gathering an inclusive, balanced representation of voices. 

“We listened to a diverse group of people, who identified some real strengths, such as our early literacy programs,” said Schwan. “But we also heard concern about information availability, particularly for those in unserved, underserved or historically marginalized communities. There also seems to be a desire for more multilingual resources beyond Spanish. These are just a few of the concerns that the survey will help us better understand and plan for.”"

Quitting Time; American Libraries, June 1, 2022

Lara Ewen , American Libraries ; Quitting Time

The pandemic is exacerbating attrition among library workers

"Those feelings of career ambivalence were complicated, Rorie says, by vocational awe, a term coined in 2017 by academic librarian Fobazi Ettarh to describe the notion that librarians, the library profession, and the institution of libraries as a whole is inherently good and therefore above reproach. For Rorie, the idealized standard only made her feel worse. “I feel like I let down the community,” she says. “I feel like I should have tried harder. It’s hard to have to come face-to-face with that.”

Yet even librarians who spoke out say they were largely ignored. “I told my boss, my director, my team, the whole library on multiple occasions that I was really burned out and not doing okay,” says Jules, a queer, neurodivergent academic librarian at a Mountain-state community college who decided in late 2021 to leave libraries. “And it never changed.” Jules is currently looking for nonlibrarian jobs.

Similar experiences have led to low morale across the profession, according to Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, a researcher and library leader whose work on morale has been widely cited.

“Low morale is a traumatic experience for librarians that was happening before the pandemic,” she says. For the purposes of her research, Kendrick defines low morale as the result of “repeated, protracted exposure to workplace abuse and neglect” and says that the issue strikes at the heart of librarians’ identities. “We feel comfortable in libraries,” she says. “But we’re realizing that libraries are not places of comfort or refuge for librarians anymore. So how do we reconcile those feelings of nostalgia, those feelings of having a calling, when we go to work and we’re being abused and neglected?”

Some libraries have tried to assuage employee unhappiness by implementing programs aimed at reducing stress, but Alex says they fall short. “They don’t seem to understand that wellness programs are placing the problem with the individual library worker,” she says. “You can’t meditate your way out of systemic issues or terrible pay or horrible levels of stress.”...

Yet it’s not just about money, says Elaina Norlin, professional development and diversity, equity, and inclusion program coordinator for the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries. “One of the mistakes most organizations—not just libraries—make is, they assume pay will resolve everything,” says Norlin, author of The Six-Step Guide to Library Worker Engagement (ALA Editions, 2021). “When you look at pay, it’s essential, but it’s not a guarantee of [being] engaged, excited, or interested. I’m not saying money isn’t important. But you can’t just say, ‘Here’s the money’ and expect all of this [other] stuff to go away.”

Norlin says that a library system with a diverse workforce will cultivate diversity of thought and different approaches. “We need libraries to invest internally as much as we invest externally,” she says. “And we need to take a really critical look at hierarchy. There is always a small percentage of people who are benefiting from status quo. They’re the gatekeepers, and that needs to be challenged for the [field] to turn around.”"

Wolf Administration: Supporting Libraries Supports Our Communities; Press Release, May 6, 2022

Press Release; Wolf Administration: Supporting Libraries Supports Our Communities

"Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Executive Deputy Secretary Dr. Debora Carrera and Deputy Secretary for the Office of Commonwealth Libraries Susan Banks today visited the Free Library of Philadelphia to advocate for continued library funding and highlight the role libraries play in communities across the commonwealth.

“Libraries play a critical role in supporting their residents, visitors, and communities,” said Dr. Carrera. “It is imperative that we ensure continued funding to help libraries like the Free Library of Philadelphia continue to provide invaluable services to learners of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life.”

In his 2022-23 budget proposal, Governor Tom Wolf has requested a $1.25 million increase for libraries, including a $1 million increase in the Public Library Subsidy. The subsidy goes directly to local libraries, library systems, 29 district library centers, and provides every Pennsylvanian access to statewide resource center libraries at State Library of Pennsylvania, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the libraries of The Pennsylvania State University.

“The Free Library is a significant resource for all Pennsylvanians, and especially for residents of Philadelphia who depend on the library for key services such as computer access, internet connection, afterschool programs, and access to materials both in person and online that educate, enlighten, and entertain,” said Kelly Richards, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. “Now more than ever, it is important to invest in libraries as centers of their communities and safe spaces for their residents.”'

Smithsonian Adopts Policy on Ethical Returns; Smithsonian, May 3, 2022

Smithsonian; Smithsonian Adopts Policy on Ethical Returns

"“There is a growing understanding at the Smithsonian and in the world of museums generally that our possession of these collections carries with it certain ethical obligations to the places and people where the collections originated,” said Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch. “Among these obligations is to consider, using our contemporary moral norms, what should be in our collections and what should not. This new policy on ethical returns is an expression of our commitment to meet these obligations.”

“When we talk about the shared stewardship of collections, what we are really talking about is a change of both scholarly practice and philosophy,” said Kevin Gover, the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Museums and Culture. “We seek to share what we know of our collections and to learn from the communities of origin in a collaborative exchange of knowledge.”

Smithsonian museums will each establish criteria and procedures for deaccessioning and returning collections for ethical reasons based on this new policy. In certain cases, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents may be required to approve the deaccession and return when objects are of significant monetary value, research or historical value, or when the deaccession might create significant public interest.

The Values and Principles Statement below is also part of the Smithsonian’s Collections Management policy:" 

Why the Smithsonian Adopted a New Policy on Ethical Collecting; Smithsonian Magazine, June 2022

Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Magazine; Why the Smithsonian Adopted a New Policy on Ethical Collecting

For more than a century, museum artifacts were acquired in ways we no longer find acceptable. How can we repair the damage?

"In 2021, the Smithsonian asked a group of collections specialists and curators to examine how to make ethical concerns central to our ongoing stewardship of Smithsonian collections. The group’s recommendations, with overwhelming support from the collections community, went into effect at the end of April. The new policy authorizes our museums to enter arrangements to share authority, expertise and responsibility for objects’ care and return certain objects based on how and under what circumstances they were acquired. Unethical acquisition could include an object having been stolen, taken under duress or removed without the owner’s consent.

The first return under consideration is a set of objects dating from the 13th century removed by the British during an 1897 raid of Benin City in what is now the nation of Nigeria. These artifacts, known as the Benin bronzes, were donated to or acquired by numerous museums over the years, including the National Museum of African Art. Of the 39 pieces in its collection, 29 have been confirmed or determined likely to have been looted, and pending approval by the Smithsonian Board of Regents, will be returned to the Nigerian government."