Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Editor’s Note: We first quoted Caltech Artist-in-Residence David Kremers maxim, “Privacy is the new luxury” back in 2009. In the decade since then, we’ve seen a continuous assault on personal privacy, as surveillance has become the dominant business model on the internet. We’ve approached questions of privacy from many different angles over the years here at The Scholarly Kitchen, including technology architectural approaches to privacy (particularly relevant in light of new authentication systems like RA21), as well as striving to find the right balance between personalization and privacy).

Librarians have long been stalwart guardians of patron privacy — an increasingly difficult task in the era of Google and Facebook. Today’s post is by Mimi Calter, Deputy University Librarian for Stanford University, who brings a useful framework for libraries as they consider patron privacy.

Patron privacy has been a long-standing concern of libraries, and in the era of Facebook data-sharing scandals and of GDPR, the privacy of users of digital content is an increasing concern. In response to that general issue, and to several specific difficulties with data providers, Stanford Libraries, with support from a number of our peer institutions, have put forward a Statement on Patron Privacy and Database Access.

You probably all know the scene: A library reading hall with endless rows of students working, studying, learning. Alone together. A nice view. Makes me happy every time I cross it. But we should never stop question our services and our users behavior (also when it’s a very positive behavior) and I often ask myself: “Why do they come? Why don’t they sit at home and study?”. Some of them for sure because they are gonna pick up a book or need library help or instruction and don’t get me wrong: I love a library filled with working students and I think we do an awesome job giving them good conditions but still, why do they come just to sit and work? I find the question important because it might be a window to both insights on the library and the people using them.

I find it a bit ironic that I’m talking in a session called ‘Learning Centers’ when I, well hate is a strong word, but I really have some big issues about the term ‘learning center’ used in library context. To me libraries are very much about learning and about people meeting, collaboration and talking. The library is also about collections for sure but a collection in itself is not the goal, the goal is to support learning, education and research and libraries are great at that so let’s just call it a library.

Sometimes, there is a big imbalance between what the users wish to have in a library and what they really get. As Mick Fortune mentions in our previous post, for many years libraries measured their success primarily by footfall and they only focused on that. Only in the last few years, libraries have really started focusing on getting to know their users better. Even so, all the studies, such as those made by The Pew Internet, Carnegie UK Trust, Museums Libraries & Archives UK, etc. end up showing the same results.