Privacy and Librarians: An Overview
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Since the rise of information in digital format (e.g. the Internet, database files), an individual's right to privacy has become a key social issue. Information about a person's professional, personal, medical, and financial life is transmitted throughout the world every day. No matter who you are, there is "information about you ... on file somewhere and available to anyone who knows how to look for it" (Lesce, 1992). Two books that document this rising threat to personal privacy in the lives of average citizens are The Privacy Poachers by Tony Lesce (1992), and Our Vanishing Privacy by Robert Ellis Smith (1993). Threats to privacy come from both public and private institutions. However, the library is one institution that has fought hard to keep patron records from snooping eyes. Librarians have traditionally been at the forefront of advocating protection of their patron's reading interests. This essay looks at some of the issues facing librarians with regard to the confidentiality and privacy of all kinds of patron records including circulation, interlibrary loan, and personal records. Librarians and library staff should view themselves as custodians of patron privacy.