Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Patron Activity Monitoring And Privacy Protection, Sam Kome

Library Staff Publications and Research

Library building usage data are weak. Electronic resource usage data are weak. We conduct occasional headcounts and receive sketchy COUNTER reports. These data lack needed specificity and can’t be correlated to each other, e.g.; what resources do the early birds who sit in the north commons use? What if we knew to the minute and foot how many patrons occupied the building and where they sat? What if we also knew the electronic resources those same patrons used whether or not they were in the building? And what if we could perfectly protect their privacy? We can. This presentation will …