This is a presentation given by Michael Lange and Stacy Reardon of the UC Berkeley Library for the 2020 Digital Library Federation (DLF) Forum. UC Berkeley Library’s responsible access workflows and a corresponding community engagement policy support cultural heritage institutions seeking to digitize special collections by helping institutions navigate complex areas of law and policy. They also address social justice, adopting an ethics of care approach that balances potential value and harm.

1. “CAN WE DIGITIZE THIS? SHOULD WE?”
NAVIGATING ETHICS, LAW, AND POLICY IN
BRINGING COLLECTIONS TO DIGITAL LIFE
Michael Lange & Stacy Reardon, UC Berkeley Library
DLF 2020 Forum 25th Anniversary

2. DIGITAL LIFECYCLE PROGRAM https://digital.lib.berkeley.edu/

3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Responsible Access Workflows
& Community Engagement
Policy Working Group
Native American Collections in
Archives, Libraries, and
Museums at the University of
California, Berkeley Working
GroupEthics Local Practices Working
Group

4. IDENTIFIED ISSUES
● Copyright
● Contracts
● Privacy
● Ethics & Policy

5. WORKFLOWS
Copyright Contracts
Ethics & Policy Privacy
http://tiny.cc/71jzsz

6. Developing Local Practices for Ethics
● Literature Review
● Two local practices documents
○ Collections Materials (general)
○ Indigenous Materials

7. Normative Theoretical Frameworks
1. Deontological
2. Virtue
3. Utilitarian (Consequential)

8. Difficulties with Individualist Frameworks
● Unequal power structures
● Unanticipated uses
● Logistical challenges

9. Ethics of Care
Unlike previous ethical theories that start from the position of an
independent rational subject thinking about how to treat other equally
independent rational subjects, the Ethics of Care starts with the real
experience of being embedded in relationships with uneven power
relations.
-- Applying an Ethics of Care to Internet Research, Suomela 2019; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Feminist
Ethics (2019)

10. Harm
Objects, materials, resources
● economic disadvantage
● violation of laws, practices
● risk of looting or defiling
People
● Deprivation or violation of, or or threat to, one’s liberty, body, well-being

11. Does the value to cultural communities, researchers, or the
public outweigh the potential for harm or exploitation of
people, resources, or knowledge?
Balancing Principle

12. INDIGENOUS COLLECTIONS PRACTICES
Not Culturally
Sensitive
Potentially
Culturally
Sensitive
Culturally
Sensitive
Digitize and Make
Available
Digitize and Make
Available with
Outreach
Do Not Make Available
Online
Value > Harm
Value < Harm
Value > Harm

13. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT POLICY
● Copyright law, and we support fair use & the public domain
● Rights to privacy
● Agreements we have entered into
● Social and religious customs, and other
circumstances
https://digital.lib.berkeley.edu/about

14. RESOURCE LINKS
● Responsible Access Workflows: http://tiny.cc/71jzsz
● Native American Collections Report: http://tiny.cc/amlzsz
● Library Community Engagement: http://tiny.cc/cmlzsz
● APS Protocols for the Treatment of Indigenous Materials:
http://tiny.cc/lmlzsz