Development and validation of the library ethics scale

Most studies on library ethics are theoretical. No scale has been developed with a valid and reliable psychometric property to measure library staff and users' ethical perceptions or behaviors. This paper describes the development of a brief measure of the Library Ethics Scale (LES) conducted in two consecutive studies. In the first study, based on the literature review and opinions of expert groups, 47 items were developed for the item pool. These items were administered to 521 university library users in Turkey. An explanatory factor analysis indicated a strong two-factor solution. In the second study conducted on 259 participants, these two-factor structures showed good psychometric properties, with 18 items explaining the total variance of 59.074. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was 0.903, and the two sub-dimensions were found to be 0.91, and 0.888, respectively. The LES shows good validity and reliability properties and has potential application in library ethics settings, including library professionals' perceptions and users' perceptions and behaviors.