Trends in legislations affecting library and information practice in Uganda

Authors

Francis Ssekitto, Makerere UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

Spring 5-2-2018

Document Type

Article

Citation

Legislation and ethics as one of the top five themes Library and Information Science are preoccupied with. Professionals cannot afford the comfort of waiting for new developments to be handed down to them but rather equip themselves with competences to; locate and evaluate primary and secondary material, understanding its value as a professional decision-making resource; apply existing legal tenets to various library environments and develop practical compliance; and express professional responsibility, views concerning the legal problems in the library and information sciences in which one is situated.

Abstract

Introduction: legislation and ethics as one of the top five themes that preoccupied LIS scholars and practitioners in the first decade of the 21^st century.

This is true for Library and Information Science and its related disciplines such as Records, information and archives, archeology and museum study.

Objective: This paper attempts to discuss the various trends in legislations relating to the Library and Information Science discipline and profession.

Methodology: In this research, reviewing literature was used to define the main concepts of this research.

Findings: There is a noticeable attribute that more legislations are likely to be drafted and passed. Indeed, there are noticeable trends in the nature of legislation relating to LIS which include the shift from a more right based form of legislations to legislations concerned with social order; a shift towards embracing changing technologies with in the legislations; thirdly, there is a shift towards the internationalisation; a shift towards open access to LIS material from closed access; the adoption of the Western values of LIS values; and adoption of LIS perspectives in other legislations

Conclusion: Professionals cannot afford the comfort of waiting for new developments to be handed down to them but rather equip themselves with competences to; locate and evaluate primary and secondary material, understanding its value as a professional decision-making resource; apply existing legal tenets to various library environments and develop practical compliance; and express professional responsibility, views concerning the legal problems in the library and information sciences in which one is situated.