HE530 Purdue University Global Library Manager Ethical Perspective Analysis
Question Description
Scenario: Imaginethat you are the director of student services at a small, privateliberal arts college, supervising admissions, academic advising, and thelibrary.
Yourfaculty senate met recently and discussed their concerns that studentsdo not know enough about the internet and modern information technology.The senate recently passed a resolution to require all students todemonstrate competence in information literacy before they begin theirsecond year. The senate defined information literacy as “the ability tolocate, access, understand, and evaluate information using currenttechnology”.
Thesenate then formed a committee to determine how to implement their newrequirement. The committee’s recommendation is to use the existingone-credit “Introduction to Library Research” class that the library –one of your departments – currently offers. This class has traditionallybeen taught by your five librarians, who are paid as adjunct facultyfor each section they teach.
Youare preparing your budget request for next year to include resourcesyou will need to offer a sufficient number of “Introduction to LibraryResearch” sections to meet the new information literacy requirement forfreshmen. As part of your planning, you ask your library manager for herinput. She suggests that, if some senior students could be hired asteaching assistants, it would significantly ease the workload on thelibrarians who will be teaching the courses. She also tells you thatthere is some excellent new software coming out that could be used inthe classes. You say that you will include both of those items in yourbudget request.
Earlierin the year, before the new information literacy requirement waspassed, you had promised your library staff new office furniture toreplace their old furniture. As you are preparing your final budgetrequest for next year, and considering the new recommendations from yourlibrary manager, you are concerned that you are not likely to get moneyfor all three items – student teaching assistants, new software, andnew furniture – and decide that new office furniture can wait. You takeout the amount you were going to request for office furniture andinstead include the money just for the student teaching assistants andnew software. Then, you distribute your final budget request to yourentire staff.
InJune, almost at the end of the fiscal year, you return from a shortvacation to discover new office furniture in your librarians’ offices.You confront your library manager about this. She says that she had notbeen able to spend all of her “supplies, equipment, and software” moneythis year, and was told by the budget office that she would lose anymonies she did not spend. Your question, of course, is why she did notbuy the new information literacy software she recommended to you, andshe said that there had been a delay in its release – it will not beavailable until late July after the end of the current fiscal year. Shesaid she knew that you had wanted the librarians to have new officefurniture and thought this was a perfect opportunity to purchase itbecause it had been taken out of the budget for next year.
Analyze the situation from an ethical perspective.
What are the ethical problems in this scenario?
What impact(s) do your choices and your library manager’s choices have on you, your staff, and the library?
How might you do things differently to avoid these problems?
What would you do differently?

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