Abstract
As library collections and services have increasingly moved from print
to digital, much of the work that used to be done by libraries themselves
with regard to creating, maintaining, and managing the systems that hold
collections and facilitate user access to them is now done primarily by vendors.
This change to the information services landscape for academic libraries is
the occasion not only of technical and procedural challenges, but also some
internal conflicts concerning the ethical demands of the library profession.
This essay examines the ways in which these conflicts become acute and
obvious when attention is paid to the way in which attempts to promote
equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are undermined by the handover of
library services to vendors, even when—or perhaps especially when—those
vendors use their control of content and platforms to commodify diverse
content instead of making the necessary systemic changes required by truly
effective EDI efforts.