A fundamental right for U.S. public library users is that of privacy. This means no one is monitoring what a patron is perusing, what they’re borrowing, or their library use history. It means that authorities cannot walk into a library and demand another user’s records; in many cases, library borrowing records are purged upon the return of materials, so there simply is no record. The right to privacy in the library is enshrined in the Library Bill of Rights, a foundational and essential document developed by the largest professional organization for library workers, the American Library Association (ALA). Thanks to the PATRIOT Act of 2021, libraries were put in the spotlight regarding their privacy policies and committed to upholding patrons’ rights to read freely, without fear that their borrowing records would be shared with the government.
This right to privacy is radical. There are few places in America where there’s any expectation of privacy, let alone a commitment to it. Learning about this blew my mind in college, when I heard that my college’s library–which doubles as the ...
English (US)