Ethics And Professionalism In Library

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02 Nov 2017

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Libraries and information centers are established in the contemporary societies with the aim to provide information to those who are in need of it, so that they can play an important role in the overall progress and prosperity of the societies to which they belong in particular and whole world in general. A single library is not in a position to serve the information needs of the population in a society. Thus we find different categories of libraries like

Academic Library like school library, college library or even university library

Public library

Special library and

National library

In every library there are three essential ingredients viz.,

Information sources comprising of primary, secondary and tertiary sources of information. Information sources are in print, electronic and digital formats.

Users of information comprising of both potential and actual users.

Staff members who are actually acting as a bridge between the users of information and the sources of information. Use of the library sources and the library services depends upon the human resources (staff) working in the library.

Importance of Human Resources (Staff) in Libraries

Success of any organization whether profit oriented or service oriented depends to a large extent on the nature of human resources. How competent and confident they are is the main yardstick by which we can judge any organization. If an organization is financially sound, but manned by the weak and non competent staff, there are more chances of its failure. In contrast if there is an organization that is weak financially but are manned by dedicated and motivated staff, there are chances of success on every front of the organization. Thus human resources employed in the libraries and information centers must possess the features of dedication, determination, skills, knowledge and the most important attribute is the right and positive attitude for giving their best for achieving the goals, objectives and the mission of the organization. Library and information centers are the service oriented institution having the mission to contribute to the creation of well informed individuals who can contribute a lot for the progress and prosperity of the societies with the arsenal of knowledge and information. This mission of helping in creating knowledge based societies is possible when professionals working in library and information centers work with honesty, dedication and determination- hallmarks of ethics in human societies.

Professional Ethics in Library and Information Science

Ethics is that branch of philosophy which is concerned with the human character and conduct. Ethics is derived from a Greek word "ethikos" meaning a custom or character. Chamber’s Dictionary defines ethics as "ethics is a code of behavior considered correct". Thus ethics means nothing but the study of what is right and what is wrong in conduct. Ethics comprise of set of values and are also designated as ethical codes. These values serve as the frame work for professional conduct and provide guidelines in the ethical decision making. The concept of professional ethics is partly comprised of what a professional should or should not do at the work place. Every profession has developed its ethical codes. These professional ethical codes should define the limits of acceptable conduct and give guidance to what kind of actions are regarded as right or wrong in the occupation.

Library and information professionals are working for a purpose and the purpose is to provide right information to the right user at the right time. The intention is that users of this information will utilize it for taking right decisions at the right time. Achieving these basic objectives demand that library professional must have a character, character of helping the needy in the times of need. A number of organizations involved in different facets of library and information science profession has formulated their code of ethics for LIS professionals. Examples are mentioned below:

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

Australian Library and Information Science Association (ALIA)

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Science Professionals (CILIP)

American Library Association (ALA)

Canadian Library Association (CLA)

By going through these codes, one can derive following features and attributes which a LIS professional must follow while delivering his / her professional responsibilities (Ganaie, 2012)

Integrity—LIS professionals must be morally upright

Impartiality—should treat all aspects of an issue in a fair and unprejudiced manner without any bias.

Responsiveness to user interests—user is regarded as the king in the library. Thus LIS professionals must give paramount importance to user interests and needs, if they have to be successful in their tasks.

Accountability – LIS professionals are responsible for all their actions and are accountable to all stakeholders, employees, users, government and the society at large.

Honesty – LIS professionals must show highest regards of this quality. They should be fair, just and sincere both in character and behavior. They should not indulge in cheating or stealing and should be free of deceit and untruthfulness.

Transparency – library professionals must be transparent in all their dealings and work and set standards for others to follow. They should be frank and open. Their actions should be easily discussed and understood by others.

Soft spoken and sensitive towards the environment in which they are working.

Never be cheaters

LIS professionals are supposed to be the champions of freedom of expression and champions against the concept of censorship.

They should use all their resources (Physical, financial, intellectual or human resources) in a judicious manner for the benefit of his/ her customers.

Bold and Courageous- at times when any person is violating the copyright or intellectual Property Rights, LIS professional should take appropriate action with legal limits.

In the digital environment when users of the internet in the library try to access immoral sites, it is the moral obligation of the LIS professional to teach ethical values to the user in order to motivate him to avoid such material in the future.

Ethics and Professional Responsibilities

Library and information science professionals are involved in performing different activities while delivering their professional responsibilities for achieving the mission and the vision of the parent organization that provides support to the library. A LIS professional must take care of each and every action he/ she performs while serving the information needs of their customers. This means that while acquiring information sources, organizing information sources, preserving information sources and ultimately in disseminating information to their patrons they must adopt and strictly adhere to the ethical propositions in order to perform their duties in an effective and efficient manner. LIS professionals must take care of ethical propositions in the following activities:

For achieving this mission all libraries irrespective of their type perform following activities.

Identification / discovery:- locating potentially worthwhile items to add to the collection. LIS professionals must ethically scrutinize the discovery tools like catalogues, bibliographies , indexing and abstracting journals and the like tools so that relevant titles are bring to the notice of those who are concerned with the selection of items into the library and information centers.

Selection: - deciding which of the identified items are to be added to the collection. LIS professionals must be ethical while selecting the items for the library keeping in view the needs and requirements of the users plus the financial resources availability.

Acquisition: - securing the items selected for the collection. LIS professional here must reflect their ethics while putting the order of selected items to the publishers. Those publishers should be given the orders that had proved their worth in the past on the basis of their services. Promptness of the service and the quality of the services should be applied as the parameters for selecting the publishers.

Organization:-indexing, cataloguing and classifying of items acquired in a manner that will aid the end user in locating materials in the collection. While classifying and cataloguing the documents , ethics demands that LIS professionals must facilitate the proper organization of items as per the scheme of classification adopted by the library and the code of cataloguing that is in use in that library. Ethics demands that all the latest trends occurring in the profession of library and information science must be studied by the professionals.

Preparation: - labeling and otherwise making the items ready for storage in a manner that allows for easy retrieval. All such tactics must be applied whereby users can easily retrieve right information at the right time as demanded by the five laws of library and information science.

Storage: - housing the prepared items in units that take into consideration the long term preservation of the items while allowing staff and end users easy access to the materials. Ethics demands that LIS professionals must understand the value of preservation of information for the present and future generations and must be aware of the state-of-art technology used for the preservation of information.

Interpretation: - Assisting the end users in locating appropriate materials that meet the user’s needs. Here professional ethics demands that users of information available in the library or at any place should be given optimum opportunities for leaning the skills and methodologies applied for retrieving the right information at the right time from the ocean of information. Thus library and information professionals must organize information literacy programs for empowering users with information retrieval skills.

Utilization:-providing the equipment and space to allow staff and end users to make effective use of items in the collection. While providing equipment to the users professional ethics demands that users should be taught how to use these equipment’s.

Dissemination:-establishing a system that allows for the use of items away from the library. Professional ethics demands that all users should get the equal opportunity for accessing the information. This is essential when the slogan "information is for all not for few" prevailing in the knowledge societies is the order of the day.

Library professionals are supposed to be the guardians of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and thus ethics demand that they must take appropriate measures for making the users aware about the different facets of IPR’s. Professional ethics demands that LIS professional should take appropriate steps for avoiding the violations committed by library patrons by indulging in the process of plagiarism.

Conclusion

Librarianship as a profession is a dynamic and most vibrant profession known now world over for the contributions it has made in creating information and knowledge based societies. However with the developments taking place in the information landscape, trends and modes of working of LIS professionals also change and thus ethical issues need to be modified and rectified as per these changes. LIS professionals need to be up-to date with the latest trends and accordingly adapt these new trends in their professional tasks. They should always keep in mind the interest of their users and must take those steps whereby the users are able to make optimal use of library and information sources and services.



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