Is the privacy of your patrons a sacred trust? According to Nate Anderson, “Librarians want to turn us all into privacy fiends.”
Blogging in ars technica, Anderson reports on the ALA’s new program to preserve and defend a patrons privacy: “”Law enforcement agencies at every level are exploiting fears about terrorism and child safety to encourage lawmakers to strip away statutory privacy protections for library records. This eliminates anonymity in the library, and encourages the mind set that ‘good’ people should have nothing to hide.”
Anderson adds, “Librarians are well suited to mount such a campaign. US public libraries have more locations than McDonalds, and 62 percent of American adults hold library cards. That gives ALA members a natural place to educate the public about these issues and channel that education into public discourse and, hopefully, a new consensus on privacy and its importance.”
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