According to Fallis (2005:1), given the ethical dilemmas facing information professionals, they need additional exposure to information ethics. He observes that just as there is business ethics for business students and medical ethics for medical students, information ethics should be part of the education of library and information professionals. As Woodward in Fallis (2005) forcefully argues, in order to deal effectively with these ethical dilemmas, library professionals need to be able to engage in ethical reasoning. In particular, since these ethical dilemmas fall within the scope of information ethics, library professionals need to have a good working knowledge of information ethics.
Carbo and Almago (2001), for example, argued about the importance of information ethics courses in library and information science. They also described the history of one of the earliest information ethics courses (at the University of Pittsburg, USA). According to the two authors, many of the information professionals who had taken such courses reported that they have been extremely beneficial. Despite the importance of the topic, there are relatively few courses on information ethics for library and information science professionals (Fallis 2005; Smith 2002). Buchanan did a survey on the information ethics courses offered by Library and Information Science programs in the United States (Fallis, 2005). The study found that less than half of the American Library Association accredited programs offered such courses, and only a few of these courses required students to take a course on information ethics. In most Library and Information Science programs, the report notes, ethical issues were only covered briefly within the course of other topics, such as collection management, information policy, and information literacy.
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