Ethics and Librarianship

Book excerpt: Over the last few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of papers and journal articles dealing with various ethical issues in librarianship, but only a few books. Information workers find themselves rendering new services and providing new kinds of information without much recourse to universally accepted ethical standards. This work is an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the subject. It promotes the view that as information managers, librarians must join with other professionals to renew a commitment to and interest in ethics. The book deals with such topics as ethics in general, the control of ideas, building collections, acquisitions and cataloging, access services, the reference function, special libraries, research and publication, and intellectual property and copyright. A chapter discusses why ethics matters.