Recently Asked Questions

My concern is about employee privacy and image use. Since it is so easy to take a picture these days, and many employee meetings are happening over videoconference, what are the laws governing the use of employee images and materials generated by a library employer?   What stops the participants in an online meeting from taking and using screenshots of attendees?  I know that being a librarian often means working with the public, but when it comes to an employer using an employee's picture and other digital captures of their image, what does the law say?   Can an employee attending an online meeting be compelled to turn on their camera?

Local police walked through our Library earlier today with no explanation. Later on, we noticed 2 teens on premises, who we assume should have been in school. We thought the police may have been looking for them as truants, but that is not confirmed. The question is, if the police were to ask if we saw the teens, are we able to answer or is that considered a violation of patron privacy as it is with patron information and records?

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 have a school district public library board considering requiring background checks for new employees. They are concerned that they may be legally required to background check all current employees. Would there be any legal reason they would need to do so?

Our library is considering a name tag policy as part of our focus on patron service.  What are the legal "do's" and "don'ts" of an employee name tag policy?