Recently Asked Questions

Recently, Zoom introduced new AI features and updated their terms of service agreement, indicating that any user data can be used to train their AI products (TOS 10.4: https://explore.zoom.us/en/terms/). There was a backlash and Zoom quickly put out a clarification and stated that these features are opt-in only (https://blog.zoom.us/zooms-term-service-ai/). Despite this clarification, I am wondering if there are any privacy or FERPA concerns that librarians and educators need to be worried about since Zoom is still used heavily in both library and school worlds. Should we be looking for alternatives or is this just the way of the world now?

Recently a question has come up at our academic library concerning patron privacy and the notification to a patron (usually a student) concerning excessive downloading of content from databases in our collection. Our current practice has been to receive notification from the vendor about perceived illegal downloading. We then ask a member of our library IT team to investigate the situation, based on the information from the vendor. The contact information acquired by that IT staff member is then provided to the e-resource librarian. That librarian then contacts the individual via email, explaining the situation and indicating that such behavior must cease. Once that is done, the librarian notifies the vendor that the situation has been addressed, and there is no need to withhold access to the product from the campus. No personal identification of the user or student is provided to the vendor, nor distributed to anyone else. The question now: Is this process appropriate in resolving the misuse of a database, or does it violate the user’s/student’s privacy rights?