As the LIS field is being restructured world‐wide, a survey of key institutions and relevant literature confirms that ethics and its information age derivative “infoethics” are…
Abstract
As the LIS field is being restructured world‐wide, a survey of key institutions and relevant literature confirms that ethics and its information age derivative “infoethics” are becoming important components of LIS research and teaching. LIS scholars and educators need to train students in value‐based skills appropriate for many information age challenges. In Europe LIS research and teaching will in addition need to adapt to the converging forces of the Bologna Agreement’s “European Higher Education Area”.
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Norway is becoming increasingly multicultural, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the capital Oslo. While immigrants only make up 7 per cent of the population at the…
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Norway is becoming increasingly multicultural, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the capital Oslo. While immigrants only make up 7 per cent of the population at the national level, the figure is 20 per cent in Oslo, where in addition, 35 per cent of all pupils in primary and secondary schools belong to a linguistic minority. In Norway, and especially in the capital Oslo, multiculturalism is rapidly becoming the rule rather than the exception. At the same time reading tests show that immigrant and minority children have special problems. Successful integration of “new Norwegians” starts in the kindergartens and schools, including the school library. In this situation traditional librarianship training is inadequate. Improved pedagogical and communicational skills are required of the librarian in multicultural school libraries, and drama is a promising technique to improve language proficiency among pupils. The article presents some insights from Vahl Primary School in Oslo which has the highest concentration of multicultural pupils in the country – 95 per cent.
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Value considerations and ethics are increasingly relevant in the library and information science (LIS) field, both in education, research and in the profession. Change management…
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Value considerations and ethics are increasingly relevant in the library and information science (LIS) field, both in education, research and in the profession. Change management in LIS therefore needs input from studies of professional values among librarians and information professionals. The article presents some preliminary findings from the first survey of professional values in Norwegian librarianship. International surveys have shown that patron service, intellectual freedom, preservation of the record, equality of access, and information literacy are primary ethical and professional values for librarians and information professionals in many countries. The Norwegian survey in general supports these findings but also identifies and explains some nuances in value preferences among public librarians compared with college and university librarians.
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Libraries depend on ethical principles more than any other institution because library services are essentially human‐oriented. Most national ethical principles for librarians are…
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Libraries depend on ethical principles more than any other institution because library services are essentially human‐oriented. Most national ethical principles for librarians are represented as professional ethic codes. Each of them eventually consolidates the ideology, the paradigm of national library services. Comparative analysis of national library ethic codes indicates the intellectual freedom principle as the key point and the superior ethical value for library services. With Internet technologies implemented in library services, the principle acquires a new significance and grave problems. Recent information filtering capacities provide a radically new censorship level, including anonymous censorship, violation of user privacy in Internet communications. On the one hand, librarians must follow the intellectual freedom principle, on the other, libraries are humanistic institutions, and librarians have a moral responsibility to the patrons, adhering to the value of human life. This paper discusses these issues as they relate to the Internet as well as the correlation of professional codes and their implementation in library practices.
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Plamen Miltenoff and Robert Hauptman
The authors have the purpose of surveying international librarians in order to discover whether ethical considerations are of real import in various countries.
Abstract
Purpose
The authors have the purpose of surveying international librarians in order to discover whether ethical considerations are of real import in various countries.
Design/methodology/approach
The webmasters of 20 sites were contacted for permission to disseminate a brief survey to their members.
Findings
The results from the 17 sites surveyed were encouraging: many participants indicated an interest in ethics.
Research limitations/implications
A larger, more diverse survey could be implemented in the future.
Originality/value
This is perhaps the first survey of its kind. It shows that people in various countries do care about ethical issues.
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Motoko Yamagishi, Masanori Koizumi and Håkon Larsen
The purpose of this research is to comprehensively describe the legitimacy of the public library in the 21st century.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to comprehensively describe the legitimacy of the public library in the 21st century.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved a comprehensive literature review using the Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) database with keywords “Library” and “Legitimacy”, combined with citation searches and additional collections. In total, we analysed 159 research articles primarily from the 21st century, with some comparative analysis of pre-2,000 works. The final phase of the research investigated libraries’ legitimisation efforts across various dimensions, examining how they employ rhetoric and theories to maintain legitimacy amidst challenging circumstances.
Findings
Through this research process, five dimensions of public library legitimacy emerged; (1) Democracy, (2) Culture and History, (3) Communication and Education, (4) Economy and (5) Librarianship, with the most diverse literature being related to democracy, and its subsections intellectual freedom, neutrality, the public sphere, social justice and social capital.
Originality/value
The outcome of our results indicates that the evolving legitimacy of the public library in the 21st century has become multifaceted, compared to the elements of legitimacy in the 20th century. Contemporary public libraries can continue to utilise the dimensions of legitimacy identified in this study and can reconstruct their legitimacy accordingly.
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Arne Nygaard and Robert Dahlstrom
The purpose of this study is to examine role stress over the course of an alliance between supply chains. This study examines ambiguity as antecedent to multiple organisational…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine role stress over the course of an alliance between supply chains. This study examines ambiguity as antecedent to multiple organisational outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
This study subsequently uses a time series design that uses a close replication of the authors’ initial study. The design affords the opportunity to examine the dynamics associated with the evolution of the alliance.
Findings
This study recognises that the relationships developed by collaborating firms are enacted by downstream entrepreneurs in the supply chain, yet this observation is rarely incorporated into interfirm research. The authors illustrate that the alliances have a significant downstream influence on operations at the retail level.
Research limitations/implications
This longitudinal research has the potential to reduce common method variance and enhance causal inference. The second limitation concerns the simultaneous collection of the predictor and criterion variables. The third limitation is the use of single informants as the primary vehicle for the analysis of the theoretical model when prior research indicates that multiple informants offer enhanced reliability and validity.
Practical implications
The findings contribute to the management theory of business entrepreneurship and strategic alliances and research on supply chains.
Originality/value
This study underscores the need to examine alliances via time series. Research that attempts to generalise from data collected at a single point in time is unlikely to be able to capture the dynamics associated with the development of a joint venture and offers limited opportunity to make inferences about the causal order of relationships. The model based on longitudinal data reveals that the stage of an alliance influences the level of vertical control and ambiguity and the effect of control on role ambiguity.
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Philip Fei Wu and Roberta Bernardi
The purpose of this study is to investigate how community attachment to an OHC reduces the OHC users' emotional distress and therefore improves their emotional well-being.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how community attachment to an OHC reduces the OHC users' emotional distress and therefore improves their emotional well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey study was conducted in one of the largest online health communities (OHC) for people with diabetes.
Findings
OHC participants are likely to experience reduced emotional distress when they have developed an attachment to the community. This attachment is, in turn, positively associated with the normative expectations of reciprocity and the affective feeling of gratitude. However, some commonly used behavioral measures of community participation, such as visit frequency and membership tenure, have little to do with either community attachment or reduced emotional distress.
Research limitations/implications
The research highlights the pivotal role of community attachment in appraising the much-debated benefits of OHCs. However, the cross-sectional survey study has its limitations in terms of establishing causality.
Practical implications
OHC managers need to look beyond some of the commonly used metrics, such as monthly visits and number of new postings, and focus on fostering a sense of attachment among existing users in order to fulfill the OHC's potential of emotional support. Our study implies that design features facilitating reciprocation and gratitude expression among users can lead to a strong emotional bond.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies on the antecedents of community attachment and the relationship between community attachment and emotional distress in the context of OHC.