Introduction 5 Service In the United States, both librarianship and social work list service as their number-one priority. The shared motivation to provide excellent ser- vice to patrons and clients is a key reason these two professions work so well together. The primary difference worth noting in a library-social work con- text is that the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Code of Eth- ics focuses on the most vulnerable members of society: “Social Workers’ primary goal is to help people in need” (NASW 2018). Librarianship grapples with the challenges of providing service to “all library users” by defining service in terms of “equitable access” and “accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests” (ALA 2017). Librarians are constantly assessing who is and is not using the library and how to shape current collections and programs to meet those needs. Social workers look at the same set of people and ask, instead: Who in our population would benefit from extra effort to set them on equal ground with everyone else? The answer to this question focuses their efforts on those individuals, communities, or populations. This makes social workers great partners to librarians who want to provide more equitable policies and services, but library staff members may need to remind themselves from time to time that social workers purposely focus on particu- lar patrons and don’t think of serving everyone in the same way as librarians. Similarly, social workers may need to keep in mind librarians need to work with a wide range of people, not just the ones who need the most help. Privacy and Confidentiality Social workers and librarians both prioritize patron/client privacy as a core ethic, but they diverge in the different types of information they collect and store. Librarians “protect each user’s right to privacy and confidentiality” (ALA 2017), such that many libraries refuse to collect and save more infor- mation than what is minimally required to set up a user account. In contrast, social workers collect a great deal of sensitive information as a necessary step to form a detailed understanding of their clients and develop an intervention. Social workers also need to be mindful of how that information informs their view of clients, so their professional ethics remind them to “respect the inherent dignity and worth of [every] person” (NASW 2018). While protec- tive of client privacy, social workers are mandated by the NASW Code of Ethics (and often state law) to break confidentiality if they believe clients will harm themselves or others. Social workers are also considered “mandated reporters,” which means if they suspect anyone of harming a vulnerable adult, or a child under 18, they must report this information to the appropri- ate authority. Mandated reporting is so embedded in social work that it can be confusing for social workers to learn librarians often aren’t mandated
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