Ankara'daki Üniversite Kütüphanecilerinin Mesleki Etik Konusundaki Bilinç ve Yaklaşımları Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme

Abstract

Ethics constitute the whole of principles regarding what people living in a society should or should not do. Principles of ethics are supposed to be established and implemented for unity of individuals in a society, and for development of such society. Thus, Information and Document Management (IDM) ethics consist of principles regarding what should or should not be done while performing works and rendering services in the field of librarianship. IDM ethics are important with respect to personnel and user satisfaction, and enhancing improvement of the library by avoiding arbitrary actions. This study was conducted in order to reveal awareness on and attitude towards occupational ethics, of the university librarians in Ankara, and to determine their opinions regarding ethical aspect of the actions of their colleagues within practices and applications carried out in the libraries they work. In this respect, the area of research in this study consists of all university libraries in Ankara. Descriptive survey technique was employed in our study which was sampled with 128 librarians working at libraries of 14 state and foundation universities in Ankara. Results of the study indicate that librarians believe that their colleagues and they do not have adequate knowledge of occupational ethics, and they need to be informed about the subject. There are many librarians who did not hear of the concept of occupational ethics in the course of their university educations, and were not provided with in-service training on the topic at the libraries they work. The number of librarians who are not members of Türk Kütüphaneciler Derneği (Turkish Association of Librarians), and also not aware of the Principles of Occupational Ethics established by the association, is significantly high. In this regard, our hypothesis formulated as “University librarians in Ankara do not have sufficient knowledge of occupational ethics, and they do not act strictly following the principles of ethics while performing library works and services” was proved in line with the results of the study.