From: NISO <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2015 10:30:58 -0400

The National Information Standards Organization has been awarded a
grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop a Consensus
Framework to Support Patron Privacy in Digital Library and Information
Systems. The grant will support a series of community discussions on
how libraries, publishers, and information systems providers can build
better privacy protection into their operations. The grant will also
support creation of a draft framework to support patron privacy and
subsequent publicity of the draft prior to its advancement for
approval as a NISO Recommended Practice.

“Awareness and interest in online privacy is growing rapidly following
a number of significant data breaches that have occurred over the past
year,” explains Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “Libraries
have long been stalwart advocates for protection of patron privacy,
but as the complexity of libraries’ digital services has grown, the
challenges of protecting that privacy have multiplied. Patron activity
data is no longer held exclusively by the library, nor is it
necessarily controlled by providers themselves. Compounding these
problems is the tension created by the fact that real benefit can be
achieved through the application of usage data as a tool for improving
library services. How does one balance the opportunity to improve
services or build new functionality that might improve patrons’
experiences against the need to protect privacy?”

“This delicate balance is one that NISO hopes to address through a
process of engaging community consensus to develop a framework for
addressing patron privacy in digital library systems,” states Nettie
Lagace, NISO Associate Director for Programs. “By bringing together
thought leaders and engaged members of the publishing, library, and
systems vendor communities, this project will provide a forum for
perspectives to be shared and benefits and drawbacks of various
approaches to be discussed from multiple angles. Involvement of the
publishers and vendors is particularly important as they have been
less engaged in privacy discussions and their implications.”

This project will consist of three phases. The first will be a
pre-meeting discussion phase, which will consist of four virtual
forums to discuss privacy of internal library systems, privacy of
publisher systems, privacy of provider systems, and legal aspects
influencing data sharing and policies. Each of the discussion sessions
will be a three-hour web-based session designed to lay the groundwork
for a productive in-person meeting at the conclusion of the American
Library Association meeting in San Francisco, CA in June 2015.
Following the in-person meeting, a Framework document will be
completed detailing the privacy principles and recommendations agreed
to by the participants, and then circulated for public comment and
finalization.

More information, including a version of the project proposal, is
available on the NISO website at:
www.niso.org/topics/tl/patron_privacy/

Contact:

Nettie Lagace
NISO Associate Director for Programs
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