Radical Librarianship: Ninja librarians are ensuring patrons' electronic privacy

The San Francisco Public Library also keeps no long-term circulation records. I really admire and appreciate this.

They think it will make people feel more freedom to check out the books that interest them, without fear of what other people will think. That seems almost certainly right. I wonder if anybody has studied the effect of reader privacy on people's reading habits. (The experiment might be a little tricky to set up because the baseline level of interest in particular books, and baseline level of stigma associated with them, could vary quite a bit from community to community.)

Thanks for sharing your story. You might have guessed -- your local librarian was not unique in her feelings about privacy. I worked for my county library all through high school and college. When I started they had an ancient mainframe circulation system, and was there when they migrated to a newer java based system. With both systems, it was a paramount requirement that records of a patron (library term for customer) checking out a book be destroyed irretrievably after the book was returned. Even in the case of overdue item resulting in a fine, after the fine was paid, no record of the circulation or even what the fine was paid for was kept. Slips of paper printed with patrons' names and phone numbers when they put items on hold were dutifully shredded every day. At one point during school, I considered the library as a profession, and as part of my research I subscribed to a "technology in libraries" listserv, and followed it for about a year. This was soon after 9/11 and the advent of the Patriot Act, when the most pernicious implications were that the feds could look at library circulation records. (Little did we know!) Many libraries were proud that their technology specifically prevented this. There was also a constant and ongoing philosophical conversation about how to make more information freely available, and make access to it (including Internet access) anonymous, and further to resist efforts by law enforcement to use libraries to gather information on their patrons or regulate access. I cannot think of an institution that defends the freedoms of thought and expression more passionately than the public library.

On the other hand, centralized circulation data is an incredibly valuable tool for determining the shape and direction for the collection. This is why some university libraries explicitly do not want you reshelving books, even correctly - they want the record that someone looked at it. The bottom x% of books by frequency of circulation can be culled to make way for new purchases.

Of course, it is not necessary that the record of usage be in any way related to the patron's identity, but a permanent record of the fact that a patron pulled the book is essential.

Isn't the MLS like the law degree of the humanities? I.e. there's been a vast oversupply produced and I doubt the quality is even across the board.