Confidentiality
Confidentiality is a core value of librarianship, because privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. As library staff, we have special privileges that allow us to see patron information, and we take very seriously our responsibility to keep every aspect of patron records confidential, from contact information to the items a patron has checked out.
We take this so seriously that any breach of patron confidentiality will result in immediate dismissal.
Here are some situations that may pressure you to reveal confidential information and how you should respond.
- A professor needs access to a book that someone else has checked out and asks you who has it. They say, "I know it has to be someone in my class, and I just need to borrow it for an hour." You may feel pressured by their status as a professor or their urgent tone, but you cannot tell them who has the book because it would be a violation of patron confidentiality. You can offer to put the book on hold for the professor so that they get it after the current user returns it.
- A student's parent calls about a replacement charge that was billed to their student's account. They want to know what the item was that their child was charged for. Only the patron has the right to reveal to others what they have checked out, which in this case would be the student. You can recommend that they ask their child about it, since we can't reveal that information.
- An office assistant for a Hope department wants to know which books on a professor's account are overdue so that they can renew them. You cannot tell the assistant any of the titles on the professor's account, even if the assistant says that the professor asked them to do this. You can tell them that there are overdue items, and you can offer to renew them, but you cannot name any of the titles on the professor's account.
- A student TA comes to the desk with a stack of books and says, "These are for Dr. ___, so they need to be checked out on their account." You cannot check out items to the account of someone who isn't present and hasn't given you their ID. The TA has two options. The best option is for the TA to ask the Professor to email Allison and set the TA up as a "Proxy" for them. This will allow the TA to check items out to the Professor's account by scanning the TA's ID. Or, the TA can check out the books on their own account. We do not recommend that patrons check out items for other people on their accounts, since they are responsible for the items if the other person loses them.
