Privacy and Academic Libraries: Widening the Frame of Discussion

‘An absolute prerequisite’: The importance of user privacy and trust in maintaining academic freedom at the library

“…Promotion of such courses would encourage students to take responsibility for their privacy awareness, as would compilation of a resource list on privacy topics. These measures could strike an ideal balance by making librarians privacy advisors (the educational role advocated by Coombes (2004) and Shuler (2004)), whilst not diverting excessive time away from core library administration.…”

“…They can do this by: assessing their own practices (Coombes, 2004); improving their awareness of system information storage and capabilities (ibid. ); improving policy and staff awareness of the DPA (Poynder, 2002); advocating the privacy rights of users (Caidi and Ross, 2005); improving awareness of library practices, and privacy, in users (Coombes, 2004;Shuler, 2004); and producing privacy statements to provide transparency (Poynder, 2002) and clarity (Coombes, 2004). Libraries should also avoid association with the NICS, to which a majority of the students appear to be opposed.…”

“…In light of the change of direction in information policy at home (CILIP, 2005a) and abroad (Minow, 2002), vigilance is required in academic libraries to ensure that previously revered library freedoms are not lost in the quest for national security (Caidi and Ross, 2005). Libraries are institutions of democracy that embody human rights (Byrne, 2004) and should lead defence of user privacy (Coombes, 2004;Falk, 2004;Shuler, 2004;Bowers, 2006), about which users may not be well-educated (Johns and Lawson, 2005). User-library trust is strong, but not necessarily deserved (Sturges et al, 2003).…”

“…Opinion was sought on librarians as privacy educators (Coombes, 2004;Shuler, 2004) and comments invited on the survey findings for each interviewee"s particular library. Many questions were suggested by Sturges et al (2003) who investigated: "level of awareness of privacy issues"; "data protection preparedness"; "the importance of privacy to the relevant stakeholders"; "the extent of data processing in libraries"; and the "state of policies devoted to ensuring privacy to users" (p46).…”

Collaborative Filtering: A New Approach to Searching Digital Libraries

“…People appear to be more willing to collaborate and sacrifice privacy for more efficient access to information, yet still have concerns (Kobsa and Teltzrow 2005). Discussion of the responsibility of librarians vis-a-vis patron privacy is shifting from 'how to protect users privacy' to 'how to inform users about privacy concerns' (Balas 2001;Pace 2001;Shuler 2004). Working with system developers provides an excellent opportunity for librarians to integrate information about privacy into library personalization systems.…”