Confidentiality Policies and Procedures of the Reference Departments in Texas Academic Libraries.
Libraries are commonly viewed as "sanctuaries of ideas," and librarians are seen as the guardians of ideas and of the records the library and its users generate.1 Librarians are also viewed as researchers of reference questions and topics. As fa cilitators of research and keepers of rec ords, they have access to certain information about the users of the li brary?information that may be consid ered private. Lin owes and Hoyman note that librarians create records and collect
A study of US library directors' confidence and practice regarding patron confidentiality
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to learn how many libraries take specific measures to protect patron confidentiality other than having a written policy, to measure library directors' confidence in their own ability, and that of their workers, to follow confidentiality policies, and to learn what types of support directors need to better protect confidentiality.Design/methodology/approach – A paper survey was mailed to all 213 directors of public and academic libraries in Vermont; 71 per cent responded. Data were primarily quantitative.Findings – Few libraries reveal patron information by sending unsealed postcards, but many reveal patron information to third parties over the telephone. Library directors have a high level of confidence in their own ability to follow confidentiality policy and a slightly lower level of confidence in the ability of library workers to do so. Library directors need help in writing policy, getting access to legal counsel, and addressing the confidentiality of patrons who...
Thirty-three yes or no questions about mappings, measures, and metrics
Most problems in the ensuing list are of fairly recent origin. None of them seem easy and some are likely to be very difficult. The formulation of each problem is such that it can be answered by one word only: either yes or no. (Strictly speaking, it is conceivable that within the same question, the answer sometimes depends on the dimension.) We offer no conjectures or guesses. In many cases, the particular question is just a chosen concise representative from a whole group of related open problems. Whenever known, we shall point out the original source of a question. Otherwise, the question is either a folk question, a modification of a folk question, or suggested by one or both of the authors. We apologize in advance for all omissions and misquotes. Practically all the problems require some background definitions; many concepts that are being used have only recently been introduced, and are perhaps not so widely known. Typically, the question is stated first, and the relevant definitions and references are given right afterwords. To keep this essay brief, we give little or no motivation here. For this purpose, we kindly invite the reader to consult the literature as referred to in the text. This list of questions was born at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in August 1996. The choices we made were necessarily partial but still somewhat arbitrary. There certainly are many more problems around these topics that we deem equally worthy.