Book Review: Guide to Ethics in Acquisitions

Abstract

As is true of the other books that are a part of the ALCTS Acquisitions Guides Series, the Guide to Ethics in Acquisitions continues and summarizes current conversations regarding an important part of acquisitions librarianship. The Guide to Ethics in Acquisitions by Wyoma vanDuinkerken, Wendi Arant Kaspar, and Jeanne Harrell covers the previous and current aspects of ethical acquisitions practices in an academic library. As acquisitions librarians, we are tasked with various responsibilities including budgeting, adjusting, and adhering to a variety of payment workflows, reporting expenditure data to institutional stakeholders, and collection development, all of which require us to be ethical stewards of library funding and resources. This guide not only clarifies some of the reasoning for previous acquisitions practices, largely because of lack of specific ethical guidelines for librarians, but also provides information on some of the newer situations that librarians encounter because of the changing nature of research and information today.