Nonaffiliated Users in Academic Libraries: Using W.D. Rossa€?s Ethical Pluralism to Make Sense of the Tough Questions

摘要

Though the academic librarya€?s primary mission is to serve the students, faculty, and staff of its parent institution, would-be users not officially associated with the institution frequently call upon the library to provide services and/or resources. Requests by these nonaffiliated users (sometimes called community users) pose a moral quandary for public-service staff. Library personnel must weigh the demand to be helpful against their responsibility to make students, faculty, and staff their top priority. The authors employ W.D. Rossa€?s pluralistic framework of prima facie duties to examine the conflicting obligations at the heart of this ethical dilemma.