Privacy and School Librarian Leaders

With the annual big data breach at Facebook comes another wave of discussions about privacy. Let's take this opportunity to educate our students about their own personal and private information, including their library records. 


As librarians, we have a legal obligation to make an effort to protect our students' privacy. We don't have the right to share their private information with parents/teachers/administrators just because it will make it easier for us to recall books. Our mission is bigger than that and we need to serve as leaders in our schools in this area. 

Here are some ideas:

• Take some time this week to talk to teachers and administrators about NH's library user record confidentiality laws and how it impacts student records. 
• Follow Donna Zecha's lead and turn off "save patron checkout histories" within your circulation system's settings.
• Talk to your students about their right to privacy (in the library and beyond). 
• Play a game with your elementary students like Canada's Data Defenders 
• Use the Common Sense Media lesson on Data and Privacy Protection  [they also have a K-12 scope and sequence here]
• Look at InCtrl's Teaching Digital Citizenship lessons

If you had been including names and titles of books on overdue notices sent to parents/teachers, come up with a new plan for how you are going to change this process and manage your collection. 

Finally, let's all focus on this quote from John Schu (@MrSchuReads)  "it's not about getting books back, it's about getting readers back." 

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