Ethical Misconduct Among Librarians In Selected Nursing Training Colleges In Ghana
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Journal of Academic Librarianship
Abstract
Every profession is guided by ethical conduct to help maintain the status quo of the profession. This study
focused on assessing the ethical misconduct among librarians in selected nursing and midwifery training colleges
in Ghana. The study adopted a qualitative research technique. Four head librarians were chosen using a pur posive sampling approach each, from the three sectors demarcated by the researchers for the study. The findings
from this study indicate that plagiarism is the most ethical misconduct librarians engage in, followed by violation
of intellectual property rights and lack of access to information. The study also reveals that quick turnaround for
searches, inadequate funds, ignorance of the code of ethics, and lack of education are the main causes of in formation ethical misconduct in librarianship. The study recommends that enough funding must be given to
Nursing and Midwifery Training College (NMTC) libraries by management in order to equip them with the
acquisition of legitimate materials to help curtail the violation of intellectual property rights and all other forms
of ethical misconduct and dilemmas as a whole. Furthermore, the researchers propose that the Ghana Library
Association which is the body responsible for librarians’ interests should revise the 2014 Library Code of Ethics
and urgently hold a seminar/workshop to refresh members’ knowledge of the Code of Ethics.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Ghana, Library codes, Ethical misconduct