Library and Information Science (LIS) profession is a facility oriented profession where mission and vision of the professional is to provide right kind of information to the right user at the right time. However, because of information revolution and knowledge explosion, it is very difficult for library and information science professionals to provide identified comprehensive and expeditious information to the users. Further, it is also evident that the information seeking behavior of users is also fluctuating and thus making the job of library professionals is more complicated. Information technology (IT) has penetrated in every sphere of the library landscape and has even empowered users of the libraries to make both legal and illegal use of information in violation of Copyrights (IPR) in a digital environment. Library professionals have a serious concern for intellectual property right. All these developments demand that library and information professionals must be equipped with professional ethics along with LIS skills, so that while taking any decision regarding any issue in the library, they will take the right one. Thus there is a need for inculcating ethical values among the library professionals particularly in the present digital information era. Developing these ethical values in library professionals can be done in a number of ways like through organizing conferences, Seminars and work-shops etc., therefore library and information science departments can play a vital role in this direction. Present paper highlights the professional ethical aspects included in the syllabi adopted by the library and information science departments in South Indian Universities. Majority of the LIS departments under the scope of present study have incorporated ethical component in their syllabi.
Keywords: Copyright; Intellectual Property Rights (IPR); Professional Ethics; Library and Information Science; Syllabi; Information technology (IT); Digital environment