Ethical misconduct among librarians in selected nursing training colleges in Ghana

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 purposive 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 information 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.