CANCELLED: Privacy Policies: From Blank Page to Usable Document

This program will help libraries of all types develop privacy policies that incorporate the full needs experienced by library institution. Instead of developing a policy that will sit on a shelf, unread and unused, this panel will walk you through the process of determining what the privacy needs of your institution and user are, how to write that in plain language, and how to get the policy approved and used in your institution. Participants will be offered practical tools, templates, best practices, and real world examples that they can apply to their own situations. We will also discuss common roadblocks, and we will offer time for Q&A so that specific questions can be addressed.

Privacy and confidentiality concerns are growing by the day. Further, with libraries becoming more dependent on external vendors and on experts from outside the library field, there is no shared ethos of the appropriate way to use library data.

This panel comes from a point of view that library data is valuable and should be protected by all means necessary. Privacy for library users (in all contexts) is a right that it is up to each institution to preserve and maintain. Policies are where the functional backbone of library work reside, and it is incumbent on all contemporary LIS institutions to have a strong privacy policy that explicitly and specifically protects the rights of users across all library services.