Informationsethik und Bibliotheksethik

PurposeTo provide an introduction to concepts and resources that will be useful to library professionals learning about information ethics.Design/methodology/approachThis paper argues for the importance of information ethics to twenty‐first century library professionals. It describes what various authors have said about how information ethics can be applied to the ethical dilemmas faced by library professionals.FindingsIn order to deal effectively with their ethical dilemmas, library professionals must have a good working knowledge of information ethics. Codes of professional ethics can help to provide such knowledge, but they are not sufficient. Courses on information ethics must be part of the education of information professionals. Such courses should provide library professionals with an understanding of ethical theories and how they apply to concrete practical cases. Such courses should also make explicit the connection between information ethics and the mission of the library professional.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of publications on the topic of information ethics and library professionals.Originality/valueThis paper provides library professionals with a concise introduction to information ethics.

The increasing need for Chartered Accountants to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for professional work makes it especially important for Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) students to be well versed in ICT before they qualify as Chartered Accountants. This paper reported on a study carried out to assess the state of preparedness of students at different stages of the ICAN qualifying examinations in major tuition centres in Ibadan, Nigeria using ICT in professional practice. The results showed that though ICAN students generally had favourable attitudes towards ICT use, most felt that their current ICAN training was not adequately preparing them for ICT use in professional practice. A major barrier observed was the lack of appropriate ICT equipment at the tuition centres. ICAN students needed to appreciate and learn how to use ICT as working tools before going into professional practice. The current ICAN Syllabus is deficient in preparing students for using ICT in professional practice. It is recommended that practical ICT examinations be integrated into the ICAN curriculum so as to ensure that tuition centres make ICT facilities available for practical training of students. The Information Technologist Vol. 5 (1) 2008: pp. 19-41

Purpose: Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) is an emerging health care technology with the potential to capture data that can be used to improve professional practice and patient outcomes. However, there is a paucity of literature in this area to guide health professionals and leaders in both the implementation and use of RTLS data. To address this gap in the literature, this qualitative study was designed to explore how staff perceive and experience RTLS, and how health care providers anticipate using RTLS data for professional practice and clinical decision making.Results: Interviews and focus groups were conducted with 31 health care professionals who work in a community hospital in Canada. There was variation between the participants in terms of the experience of being monitored, the intensity of emotions related to RTLS and being monitored, the degree to which RTLS influenced clinical decision making and reflection, and the perceptions of usefulness of RTLS data for professional practice. Three key themes emerged from the data: (1) the experience of being monitored, (2) anticipating using the data and (3) claiming the data for professional practice.Conclusions: Supports are vital to the successful adoption of RTLS and to enable health care professionals to claim and use RTLS data for professional practice and clinical decision making. During the implementation and use of RTLS data, it is crucial to recognize that RTLS data only represent the time spent in a location, and not the professional or knowledge-based practice of health professionals. Further research is required to understand the leadership strategies to guide the use of RTLS data.

The paper raises some concerns in the implementation of the ethical principles prescribed for library and information professionals at a time when these create conflict with their responsibilities towards the society. It stresses the need to orient the library professionals in ethical issues and social responsibilities, which is increasingly being felt, as codes of ethics are not sufficient to deal with the ethical dilemmas faced in the changing technology environment. In the absence of a set of ethics prescribed exclusively for library profession in India, it is recommended that library associations in India should make similar efforts like the American Library Association and others to formulate ethical guidelines that befit the changing technological and social environment and regularly address the aspect of social responsibilities of professionals to sort out ethical dilemmas.

Moral Distress in Rehabilitation Professionals: Results From a Hospital Ethics Survey

Ethics is properly defined as the discipline concerned with what is good and wrong in terms of moral duty and obligation. Ethics education is necessary in the curriculum to help students deal with ethical dilemmas in professional practice and life. The ethical codes and student’s perceptions of these codes have an impact on how they perceive, maintain and act in accordance with the ethical standards set at their workplace or school. Moral values are a set of valuable principles that assist us in becoming better human beings. These values include a variety of aspects such as morality, respect for others, helping others, loving others and so on. Social, aesthetic, cognitive, spiritual, economic, religious, health, political, environmental and cultural values are among the several forms of moral values. Information about these values enables individuals to make a meaningful contribution to the community and nation's well-being, as well as to develop into moral and ethical human beings. Human values and human rights, professional integrity, respect and equality, privacy, building of trusting relationships, creating and participating in a culture of positive cooperation, respecting the competence of other professions, taking initiative, promoting an open culture and displaying loyalty towards goals and objectives are some of the factors that lead to the development of professional ethics. Moral standards can be improved through education, especially among students. Education, in my opinion, is the most effective means of instilling moral ideals in individuals. Student’s emotional intelligence will be influenced by their moral ideals. As a result, moral values and ethics education is critical in our schooling. Moral and ethical values education will result in a society that is more egalitarian, diverse and inclusive.

Employment for Librarians in the UAE: Opportunities and Challenges The success of an educational program can be measured by the employment opportunities occupied by the graduates in the market. The higher the successes of an educational program the higher employment opportunities for graduates. For more than centuries, library and information science schools have prepared and trained thousands of students in information management, cataloguing and classification, documentation, preservation and conservation of manuscript, collection management, etc. However, most of these students suffer from lack of employment opportunity compared to other disciplines and specializations. The main purpose of this study is to investigate employment opportunities for library and information professionals in the UAE. The study will try to answer the following questions: How librarians perceive employment of library professionals in the UAE? What are the job opportunities for library professionals in the UAE? What are the challenges facing library professionals in the UAE? Do library schools in the Gulf countries offer programs that match job titles advertised in the UAE? What can be done to improve employment opportunities for librarians in the Gulf countries? The study will use survey questionnaire to collect data on the perceptions of librarians towards employment opportunities in the UAE. In addition, data of job advertisements published in the newspapers and websites of employment agents from January 2014 to December 2015 will be collected. The collected data will be analyzed and discussed using frequency distributions, percentages and percentages. Findings may contribute to the understanding and improvement of employment opportunities for library professionals in the UAE and Gulf countries.

Community interpreters (or public service interpreters) work in a variety of contexts, including health, legal, and governmental service provision. Although the field is characterised by diversity, community interpreters may be unified by the relevant professional code of ethics. Previous studies have shown that case deliberation in educational settings can be valuable to practitioners in developing the skills to resolve ethical dilemmas in practice. This study explored ethical dilemmas experienced by community interpreters working in policing and other contexts. Transcripts of interviews with 20 Australian community interpreters were analysed to document the types of ethical dilemmas discussed and the salience of ethical principles in resolving them. Participants referred to all ethical principles from the Australian Code of Ethics. Four themes were identified in the types of dilemmas that participants reported: wanting to help one of the parties, not wanting to say what the parties said, pressure to take on another professional’s role, and disagreeing with another interpreter’s choices. Participants’ resolutions of ethical dilemmas mostly aligned with principles from the Code. The study highlights the significance of professional ethics to community interpreters and provides examples from practice that may be valuable in community interpreter education, training and professional development contexts.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions. Its aim is to gather, assess, and apply research results that are pertinent to questions that arise in the course of everyday professional practice. Its focus is pragmatic rather than theoretic. Evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) comprises a set of principles and practices derived from EBP, primarily the health professions. These principles are described and referenced to examples from the LIS literature. While EBLIP’s strongest proponents are found among health sciences librarians, efforts to incorporate evidence into practical decision-making may be found in other sectors in the library and information professions. It is also used as a rationale to encourage enlarging and improving the evidence base of library and information science as a discipline. EBLIP is an international movement of library and information professionals from a number of countries, especially the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, North America, and Australia. As a relatively new movement within the professions, EBP continues to evolve, with changing emphases depending on discipline, region, organization, and topic.

A Review of: Sharun, S. (2019). Exploring value as a dimension of professional information literacy. Journal of Information Literacy, 13(2), 26–40. https://doi.org/10.11645/13.2.2627 Abstract Objective – To critically explore the frame “Information has Value” in a workplace setting. Design – Semi-structured interviews. Setting – Community health centre in Canada. Subjects – Seven health and human services staff members serving vulnerable, urban youth ages 12 to 24. Methods – The researcher employed phenomenography to analyze interviews and to identify categories of information practice. Main Results – Four categories of information practice emerged: resourcing, referring, outsourcing, and advocating. The researcher identified the value of information as central to participants’ experience of information practice in the workplace. Subjects’ understanding of the nature and significance of value was situated within personal relationships and professional networks. Conclusion – The study demonstrated that a specific aspect of information literacy can be successfully investigated to highlight its complexity and to show how it is experienced in a specific setting. A second conclusion was the centrality of interpersonal relationships to how value is experienced in professional information practice. The researcher recommends further study exploring relational value and in the sociocultural practice of information literacy.

In daily work of nurses and technicians of all profiles, often are present ethical 'unfavorable' situation. Polemics on this subject was performed with intent to stimulate nurses and healthcare technicians on thinking, and to refer them to discussion, because we can accept the burden of profession in the fullest sense of the word and take it only if we are ethically 'equipped' for that. As morally responsible and dutiful profession, nursing promotes moral principles and interests of those who are the part of nursing care. That's why professional success of nurses and healthcare technicians depends on professional and ethical conduct. The basic requirements for that are knowledge and conscience. 'Conscience without knowledge is not useful, knowledge without conscience is immorality and danger.' Ethical dilemmas are an integral part of modern life and represent a constant challenge to our sense of ethics. Ethics can be defined as a philosophical discipline that consists of a set of principles, right decisions and moral action. Nurse's responsibilities under the Ethics code for nurses by International Nurses Council are: health promotion, disease prevention, restoring health and alleviating suffering of very ill patients. Medical ethics, as a kind of ethics, applied ethics and moral principles of human activities in a field of: health, disease, life and death. It regulates the rights and duties of health professionals and patients. Ethical principles are regulated by Codes that govern: the way of professional conduct, relationship to the patient, operating mode of healthcare team, respect for professional secrecy, education, respect for reputation of nurses estates, protect patients from risk, ensuring of responsibility, the way of resolving ethical issues and relationships among nurses and healthcare technicians. Ethical dilemmas in practice follow us always when there is a conflict of our value systems. Codes are recommended framework of professional conduct, but concrete decision is always on our minds and conscience.

The burgeoning integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly its generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) applications, is fundamentally transforming Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and, consequently, the professional landscape of map and geospatial libraries. While these technologies offer unprecedented capabilities for data analysis, visualization, and content creation, their widespread adoption introduces a complex array of social and ethical challenges that necessitate critical examination by library professionals. Aligning with the broader feminist critique of positivist science practices that typically dominate GIS methodologies and using feminist theory, this paper critically reflects on the social and ethical implications of GeoAI and GenAI within map and geospatial library contexts. It draws upon a review of existing literature in feminist geography, critical cartography, and AI ethics, alongside insights derived from professional practice. A central tenet of this reflection is the recognition that, much like the historically contested fields of cartography and geography, GeoAI and GenAI is a feminist issue. This critical lens reveals that both cartography/geography and GeoAI/GenAI present similar opportunities for embedding and perpetuating societal biases and systems of domination within spatial representations. This can be seen through the ways in which GeoAI/GenAI perpetuate hierarchies, restricting access and agency based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Through critical reflection, this paper aims to equip map and geospatial library professionals with the theoretical and pedagogical exploration of feminist geospatial ethics. It seeks to foster a deeper understanding of librarians’ social and ethical obligations in an increasingly AI-driven geospatial information environment, thereby empowering them to navigate these complexities responsibly and ensure the realization of GeoAI and GenAI’s relationship with systems of oppression.

Social workers are keenly aware of ethical challenges in professional practice. Formal ethics education strives to acquaint social workers with common ethical dilemmas in practice and decision-making protocols and frameworks. However, the social work literature includes relatively little information about practical resources promoted in allied professions that can be useful to social workers who encounter ethics challenges. This article discusses the role of four principal resources: informal ethics conversations among social workers and other colleagues (“curbside consults”), formal ethics consultations, agency-based ethics committees, and ethics rounds. The author includes illustrative examples demonstrating social workers’ use of these resources to manage ethics challenges skillfully.

Purpose– Considering the perceived significance of librarians and information experts as professional information seekers and information seeking educators and of the institutional setting of information work, very little is known about the information practices of librarians and information professionals, their contexts and implications for libraries and their users. The aim of this study is to explore the information interactions of library professionals within and in relation to the context of the setting of the library.Design/methodology/approach– The analysis is based on a qualitative case study of a large North European city library. Material was collected using information seeking diaries, interviews and ethnographic observation in the library space.Findings– The information practices of librarians are contextual to the setting of the library within which the meeting of the assumptions of library users, of the use of that particular system plays a significant role. The systemic interplay of librarians, library users and other parts of the system constrains the breadth of the available information at libraries, but at the same time, keeping to a particular set of shared norms and practices of library use also facilitates the use of the system.Research limitations/implications– The generalisability of the findings is limited by the fact that they are based on an individual case study.Practical implications– The systemic nature of library and its reproduction in a process of structuration underlines the need to develop information services in libraries from a holistic perspective that takes into account the practical implications of the shared norms and assumptions of how a library should work.Originality/value– There is little earlier research on the information practices of library and information professionals, particularly with specific reference to its implications for libraries and their users.

The purpose of this mixed methods study is to determine the effectiveness of casebased pedagogy in teaching basic principles of information ethics and ethical decisionmaking. Study reports results of pre- and post-assessment completed by 49 library and information science (LIS) graduate students at a Midwestern university. Using Creswell’s (2014) convergent mixed methods strategy, the assessment instrument collected both quantitative and qualitative data in the pre- and post-assessment instrument, analyzed data separately, and compared it to better understand the problem. Pedagogy providing the context for this study is an example of a deliberate shift away from static lecture and memorization methods of instruction, to instruction involving a dynamic, interactive learning process. Curriculum and instruction is influenced by Dervin’s (1983) seminal sense-making theory, in particular Dervin and Clark’s (2003) dynamic, twodimensional communication-as-procedure model used to overcome communication gaps and inequities. Students focused on cases, authentic situational dilemmas related to privacy; intellectual freedom; intellectual property; intercultural ethics; and professional ethics. Findings suggest that case-based pedagogy resulted in students’ improved (1) abilities to describe basic principles of information ethics; (2) abilities to apply a model for ethical decision-making; (3) opportunities to practice flexible communication behavior; (4) awareness of behaviors relevant to tolerance of others, privacy rights, authors’ and artists’ rights, and treatment of co-workers; and (5) self-reported interest in the study of information ethics and satisfaction with case-based learning. It is suggested that case-based instruction using the sense-making methodology holds much promise as an effective way to operationalize information ethics education in LIS as well as in traditional social science disciplines. It offers a framework for development of students’ abilities to inform themselves efficiently and effectively about choices information professionals must make in today’s pluralistic world.