

Radical Librarianship: Ninja librarians are ensuring patrons' electronic privacy - prilasera
http://boingboing.net/2014/09/13/radical-librarianship-how-nin.html

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analog31
As a teenager, around 1980, I had a part time job at the public library in my
town. Our librarian was a privacy nut -- a fact that I appreciate more and
more. She made a point of telling everybody at the library that the
circulation records were sacrosanct. She even scolded me once for commenting
on a book that a patron was checking out: It was none of my business.

She had concocted a byzantine checkout system that would have made it almost
impossible to search the library's circulation records. It was part of my job
to send out overdue notices. Once the records had been used for that purpose,
they were destroyed. The library kept no long term circulation records.

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breakall
Thanks for sharing your story. You might have guessed -- your local librarian
was not unique in her feelings about privacy. I worked for my county library
all through high school and college. When I started they had an ancient
mainframe circulation system, and was there when they migrated to a newer java
based system. With both systems, it was a paramount requirement that records
of a patron (library term for customer) checking out a book be destroyed
irretrievably after the book was returned. Even in the case of overdue item
resulting in a fine, after the fine was paid, no record of the circulation or
even what the fine was paid for was kept. Slips of paper printed with patrons'
names and phone numbers when they put items on hold were dutifully shredded
every day. At one point during school, I considered the library as a
profession, and as part of my research I subscribed to a "technology in
libraries" listserv, and followed it for about a year. This was soon after
9/11 and the advent of the Patriot Act, when the most pernicious implications
were that the feds could look at library circulation records. (Little did we
know!) Many libraries were proud that their technology specifically prevented
this. There was also a constant and ongoing philosophical conversation about
how to make more information freely available, and make access to it
(including Internet access) anonymous, and further to resist efforts by law
enforcement to use libraries to gather information on their patrons or
regulate access. I cannot think of an institution that defends the freedoms of
thought and expression more passionately than the public library.

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analog31
Our checkout system was paper based -- no names ever went into a computer. I
thought that computerizing the system would be a great idea, but more because
I was interested in computers than for any other reason. The librarian was
opposed to it, though she was clueless about computers, but challenged me to
think of how I could be absolutely sure that there would be no permanent
record.

The library didn't switch to a computerized circulation system until after she
retired.

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daveloyall
Librarians are no slouches.

Educational Requirements for Becoming a Librarian:
[http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/education/paths/libraria...](http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/education/paths/librarian)

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ZanyProgrammer
Isn't the MLS like the law degree of the humanities? I.e. there's been a vast
oversupply produced and I doubt the quality is even across the board.

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jedanbik
[Citation needed]

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ZanyProgrammer
[http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2011/is-the-
unite...](http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2011/is-the-united-
states-training-too-many-librarians-or-too-few-part-1/)

[http://mrlibrarydude.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/i-graduated-
fr...](http://mrlibrarydude.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/i-graduated-from-a-top-
library-school-yeah-so-what/)

[http://mrlibrarydude.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/i-graduated-
fr...](http://mrlibrarydude.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/i-graduated-from-a-top-
library-school-yeah-so-what/)

So yes, very analogous to the oversupply of law school grads. The MLS comes
across as the backup degree for liberal arts majors who don't want to go to
law school, to be honest.

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jedanbik
These are good links, thanks for sharing them!

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
No problem!

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geebee
This is an interesting topic. While the world has clearly benefitted from an
explosion of information systems, I do think about what we may have lost when
libraries essentially lost their role as guardians and custodians of
information systems.

I have a friend whose kid discovered a red envelope with money in the pages of
a library book. They took it to back to the library and mentioned this,
figuring that the librarian could look up the history of who had checked out
this book, to return the money. Nope. They absolutely deliberately do not keep
that information. The idea is that if you can't decide what to read privately,
then you aren't truly free to decide what to read.

Contrast this with the steps you have to take to remove something from your
viewing history on netflix (last I checked, you can't, but you can "bury" it
by selecting a bunch of shows that you don't watch). Or various "experiments"
run on users of different social networking sites.

Innovation in the web sphere has been tremendous, I'm not going to deny that.
But we did lose something valuable when the tsunami of the internet knocked
librarians out of their role as guardians of information.

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jedanbik
Also, for those who might not know, the image used in the article references
something called a Warrant Canary:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary)

