Recently Asked Questions

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?

We are a municipal library and the building is owned by the county. The county will be installing security cameras outside the library in multiple locations for safety reasons. These cameras will not be regularly monitored unless there is a reason to consult them. We will not be viewing the footage per a patron’s request. They will be maintained by our county facilities staff and consulted only in cases where a criminal act was committed.

I have two questions related to this.

1. What type of permanent notification do we need to post about the use of cameras?

 2. What major points do we need to ensure we include in our privacy policy?