Recently Asked Questions (RAQs)

We got a question from a school library...

I was wondering about student privacy when substitutes are in the library. When I started here, subs were able to use the circulation desk to check out material. However, since September we have had one substitute who is also a parent looking up their children’s accounts. We also had another issue with a different substitute looking up material to see what students were checking out. When I found this out it made me uncomfortable and I am no longer allowing subs to circulate materials. I have had some pushback from subs about the sudden limitations. I was thinking that the information would be along the same lines as an adult volunteer. However, I did not know if subs had more privileges to access student accounts because they are district employees. I would like something in writing to reference if admin ever asks.

We got a question from an association library planning for a budget referendum that would substantially increase its tax levy. This question is in follow-up to the recent answer, The Low-down on Libraries Lobbying. Guest writer and Ask the Lawyer paralegal Nathan Feist composed this reply.

Faculty and students sometimes advise each other to upload articles downloaded from library-licensed databases into AI tools for summarization, or for study purposes, such as generating study questions and dialogs about the materials. These are not public domain articles that happened to be indexed in a library database.

Many of our faculty have access to ChatGPT EDU, which creates a "walled garden" around the files, preventing them from being used for AI training and treating them as institutional data. However, our students do not yet have access to the EDU account. In addition, many students and faculty are experimenting widely with other free AI tools on the Internet and are most likely uploading all types of files. I realize we cannot stop all of this, but if we have a statement to let library patrons know the proper uses, we are hopefully at least covering our obligations here.

Could you suggest a reasonable policy statement that libraries could publicize to their patrons regarding this issue to help ensure that patrons respect author and publisher rights and that libraries will not end up in legal trouble down the road?

According to the RAQ: Using Emails from ILS Patron Database: “Although a member library contributes information to an ILS, unless system bylaws or policies say otherwise, that information belongs to the system, who is just as ethically and legally bound to protect the information as a member library.”

However, there was a question during a session at NYLA regarding system ownership of library records that seemed to contradict this.

If the system owns the ILS and therefore the library records, wouldn’t that mean that policies pertaining to accessing/creating/modifying/deleting records for the ILS should be governed by system policies that are also approved by each member library board?

I’m specifically thinking of such policies as Confidentiality of Library Records / Inquiries from Law Enforcement - where if the system owns the records then wouldn’t both these policies just be a system one? Also with having consistency for Library Card Applications. A patron can go to one of our libraries and have to show many forms of identification - but the same patron could see us at an outreach event and not even have to show their ID to get a card.

Many libraries use a form of “registration card” when signing people up for a library card; a small form filled out by a patron before receiving a library card. We’d like some clarity regarding the retention of physical registration cards as they pertain to “Library Card Application Records” in the LGS-1.

Here are the questions:
1. How would you define a Library Card Application Record?

2. Does duplicating all information from a simple registration card into the ILS patron record relieve the retention period of the physical registration card?

3. The registration card would not have unique information or signatures. Does retention change if there is unique information on the registration card that is not duplicated in the ILS, including signatures?

4. If retention applies to a simple registration card (no signatures or unique information), is it possible to define it as a temporary data transfer tool rather than an application through policy, to relieve the retention requirement?