It's interesting that I came across this item just after spending a day reading codes of ethics for librarians, and it might be worth reading the IFLA Code of Ethics before reading this article. Columnist Rick Anderson creates an odd sort of utilitarian alternative ethics for librarians in order to pose what is actually an interesting dilemma: should librarians serve primarily their local institution, or should they serve the wider community. And in particular, should they spend their resources promoting open access for the wider community, either by contributing to publisher-led open access programs, or by helping their own institution make its own academic research open access? I get the sense that he doesn't think library resources should be spent this way, but he doesn't come out and say it, instead offering various reasons to doubt the utilitarian position.
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