LFI Course Materials/Week 12

Week 12: Vendor agreements and library privacy policies

• Real time lecture: August 9th 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern

Overview

While librarians have always considered privacy among our most sacred core values, it's no secret that library vendors don't exactly put our ideals into practice. Recent privacy issues with vendors like Kanopy, Lynda.com, and Gale Analytics have brought these contrasts into sharp relief, and these are hardly unique cases. This week, Erin Berman, chair of ALA's IFC Privacy Subcommittee will talk to us about vendor policies and privacy, and how to demand that our vendors respect our fundamental values in the products they sell us. We'll talk about some common privacy issues with vendors and how to create better vendor agreements using the ALA Library Privacy Checklists

Readings

• ALA Library Privacy Checklists ​ http://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy/checklists
• Protecting Patron Privacy: Librarians, Vendors, and Patrons Each Have a Role to Play

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1330&context=collaborativelibrarianship

• San Jose Public Library Vendor Security Analysis results

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jdPwQeC5RAUbBWLAhyIYxWHa0pTdVObc

• EFF’s How to Assess Vendors’ Data Security

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/how-assess-vendors-data-security

Guest lecturer

Erin Berman, Chair of ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee Privacy Subcommittee

Discussion

• Do you know how your vendor policies measure up to the privacy checklists?
• How could a library get started implementing these checklists?
• What are some other ways we could influence vendor agreements?

Tasks

• Discussion forum and small group work