Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is: A Values-Based Evaluation Tool for Collections Decisions

Abstract

As libraries and communities consider institutional values and ethical standards, there is a need to scrutinize how those values and standards connect with collections decisions. An existing body of literature about the contents of the collections exists, with respect to issues like decolonization and open access, but little about the business relationships libraries maintain in order to acquire these collections. In this paper, librarians from Purdue University take a critical approach to identifying the values of their institution at multiple levels, including a newly released Libraries strategic plan, to create a values-based evaluation tool for future collection assessment.

Keywords:

• Business ethics
• collections management
• critical collections
• critical librarianship
• values

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies’ administration and the Information Resources Council for their interest and support of this project.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare and are not speaking on behalf of their institutions.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.