The Intellectual Freedom Committee is seeking feedback on their privacy field guides. They are especially looking for input from school librarians at this time. Here are the details...
Privacy Field Guides for Libraries
Preliminary Details
The project team of the IMLS-funded Privacy Field Guides for Libraries project is looking for a few school, public, and academic libraries to test out and provide feedback on one or more of the newly-created guides. The guides will be unveiled ready for testing by the beginning of June. Your contribution to this project as a test library will have future impact on privacy understanding, education, and advocacy for public, academic, and school libraries across the US. Thank you for considering your library's participation as a test library.
What is the project?
We are creating a series of guides that focus on tangible, hands-on techniques for better protecting your library's privacy and/or the privacy of your users. The guides are written to be concise, offering practical advice and resources to be used in a library by staff or administration.
Topics of guides include:
- Digital Security Basics
- Privacy Audits
- Data Life Cycles
- How to Talk about Privacy
- Vendors and Privacy
- Privacy Policies
- Non-Tech Privacy
What are we looking for?
Test libraries to try out our guides in real world situations for one to three months. We want a wide range of libraries from public, school, and academic libraries and from urban, rural, suburban, and small towns. Test sites will use one or more guides in their institutions and give feedback.
We are looking for libraries that:
- Will use one or more guides for a real-world initiative between June - August*.
- Can offer a point person at the library who will be our main contact, will gather useful information from stakeholders involved, and provide us with feedback.
- Is willing to complete a pre- and post-testing survey.
*Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project's timeline has been setback. We understand many school libraries may not be in session over the summer and be unable to test guides in real world settings. We deeply value the input from school library workers and encourage individuals to apply and give feedback.
What is the timing for library test sites?
We will have test site instructions to guide you through the process.
May
- Confirm your library's interest in being a tester
- Pre-survey sent to get a base-line of where your library is currently at in regards to various privacy topics
June - August
- Distribute first set of guides to test sites along with instructions
- Testing at libraries
- Post-survey
Privacy Guides Team
The team members' expertise includes public and academic librarians, scholars, and peers involved in various ALA privacy-related work.
Erin Berman is the chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee's Privacy Subcommittee, creator of the San Jose Public Library's Virtual Privacy Lab, and Learning Group Division Director at the Alameda County Library.
Bonnie Tijerina is an affiliate researcher at Data & Society, a research institute in NYC. There, she works on projects related to online privacy and ethics in data research. Prior to that, Bonnie worked in academic libraries for over a decade.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone is the Director for the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, where she does research, education and professional development projects for ALA's intellectual freedom programs, with an emphasis on law and policy.
Becky Yoose is a Library Data Privacy Consultant at LDH Consulting Services which she recently started. Prior to consulting, she worked as the Library Applications and System Manager for Seattle Public Library where she became an expert in data management, privacy, and security.
Julie Oborny is a Web Librarian for San Jose Public Library. She authored a chapter on social network sites, surveillance, and RFID in Protecting Patron Privacy: A LITA Guide and instructs the Infopeople course "Getting Started with User Experience: Improving Library User Interactions".
Our guides were created in partnership with Pixel By Inch, a design and branding agency based in Oakland, CA. https://www.pxidesign.com/
More Questions?
You can see more details about this project in the IMLS proposal submission: https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-36-19-0073-19-0. The Guides team will provide more details and instructions for interested libraries in May. You can reach out to project leads Erin Berman ErinBerman@aclibrary.org and Bonnie Tijerina bonnie.tijerina@gmail.com at any time.
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[Michael] [Saar]
[Head of Instructional Services and Assessment]
[Lamar University]
[He/Him/His]
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