FEATURE
Anonymous Library Cards Allow You to Wonder, 'Who Was
That Masked Patron?'
by Ben Ostrowsky
As fans of classic radio and TV know, the Lone Ranger wore a mask to hide
his identity from the outlaws he brought to justice. While the people he helped
asked, "Who was that masked man?" the audience knew that John Reid was safe
only because his mask afforded him privacy.
Privacy has come a long way since that show was first popular. As technology
for making and breaking codes has improved, our ability to keep secrets has
waxed and waned. One constant, however, is the fact that you can't retrieve
information that you've never stored.
Like the Lone Ranger's mask, a good information retention policy can safeguard
personal identity information. Librarians want to be sure that patrons will
return what they borrow, and they want statistics that quantify the library's
value to its community. Librarians also want to protect customers' privacy;
we usually don't keep personally identifiable information unless we have to.
Trying to Protect Your 'Faithful Companions'
Most of the time, if you walk into a library and want to use its books, nobody
will ask to see your identification. Try to walk out with the latest best seller,
though, and the librarian will insist on knowing who you are and where they
can find you later. A library must protect itself from theft and damage, after
all. You offer your identity as collateral, verified with photo ID. If you
don't bring back a CD, the library staff can try to track you down.
Unfortunately, if an over-zealous special agent on a fishing expedition wants
to know who checked out Anti-Flag's album The Terror State yesterday, the librarian
will probably have little choice. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, he or she would
have to surrender the personal identity information that was originally collected
to protect the library's materials.
Local politicians and celebrities can also be the targets of information
theft. Opponents in an election would love to expose possibly unethical behavior
by the incumbent: fees that were waived as a courtesy, fines accrued for overdue
items, or controversial books that he or she borrowed. A sympathetic volunteer
or employee is a more likely source of data-leaking trouble than a hacker is,
but your library's reputation would be damaged just as badly in either case.
In short, collecting personal identity information about customers is a dangerous
activity for a library. We should be careful to engage in it only when absolutely
necessary. Until now, proof of identity has always been an essential form of
collateral to protect a library and its possessions. But soon libraries will
be able to protect themselves from many legal snafus by opting to let patrons
remain anonymous. How? You have to realize that personal information is not
the only form of collateralyou can use cash instead. For instance, did
you know that you can rent an audiobook at any Cracker Barrel restaurant without
showing identification? Just pay the price of the audiobook with cash, listen
to it, and then return it with a receipt. They'll give your deposit back in
cash, minus the rental fee. We librarians can improve on this service model
by eliminating the rental fee.
Fighting for Law and Order
You've seen anonymous cash cards already; you may even have received them
before. They're better known as gift cards. Using the same principle, libraries
can issue a borrower card that uses cash, rather than personal ID information,
as collateral. Here's an example: If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to
get an anonymous library card, she can check out The Terror State without identifying
herself. Her account balance is temporarily reduced by $15, and when the library
checks the CD back in (in good condition), her balance is restored to its original
value.
Of course, she can still use an identity-based library card as much as she
wants. Because the library knows how to contact the owner of a card associated
with a photo ID, it is willing to loan hundreds of dollars worth of material.
If the user doesn't promptly return the material in good condition, the library
can involve a collection agency or alert the police.
With an anonymous library card, the library is willing to loan materials
to anyone because it knows it can't really lose anything. Since the library
would never loan more than it could re-coup from a cash deposit, it would be
able to loan controversial items without storing personally sen-sitive information.
If the user doesn't return the material promptly, the fines would be deducted
when it's finally checked in (or once the accrued fines reach the price of
the material).
With this system in place, libraries could also welcome tourists who want
to borrow books about the local community, travelers who want to watch DVDs
on their laptops in their hotels, and (where reciprocal borrowing agreements
don't exist) library users from neighboring areas. I once drove to the next
county over to borrow an obscure film on DVD only to realize there was no reciprocal
borrowing agreement in place. I went home sad and empty-handed because a cash-based
card was not an option.
Simply put, anonymous lending opens the door to new kinds of users, protects
the library from loss of materials, protects the borrower from loss of privacy,
and protects both from the repercussions of a privacy breach. And law enforcement
could still investigate suspects in a criminal case: Having searched the suspect's
belongings with a legitimate warrant, police officers could ask the library
for information about the use of the anonymous library card they seized. Random
snooping, though, becomes completely fruitless. Law enforcement would have
to begin with a suspect and work backward, instead of starting with a controversial
title and fishing for borrowers.
There Are No Silver Bullets
While anonymous library cards hold great promise, they are not superior in
every way to traditional identity-based cards. They present risks and limitations
not usually associated with a library card. I'll address these drawbacks and
put them in context.
Like a gift card, a phone card, or indeed a $20 bill, an anonymous library
card represents value that vanishes if the card is lost or damaged. This is
a risk that library users take for granted in these other situations, and so
they should readily understand it.
Also, like the service of renting out audiobooks for a fee, the anonymous
library card does not do enough to address the needs of poor people. But all
users, regardless of economic status, would still be able to check out books
using identity as collateral, receive excellent reference service, and use
material within the library. In fact, a homeless person who might otherwise
be unable to get a library card could place requests on popular items with
a $1 card and then use them within the library when his or her turn comes.
So poor people would be no worse off in a library that offers anonymous cash
cards.
You Really Can Become 'The Loan Arranger'
You may be thinking, "That sounds interesting, but how could it ever work
with our ILS?" Have no fear; help is on the way. Dynix is already working on
it.
With the upcoming release of Horizon 8.0 (scheduled for later this year),
setting up anonymous lending should be relatively simple. "Guest users" will
be able to borrow items using money, not identity, as collateral. (To understand
how this will work, see the sidebar provided by Dynix's Technical Product Management
Department.)
I tried asking a few other vendors whether they were moving toward supporting
this option. A rep from The Library Corporation told me that this can be implemented
at a customer's request. I tried to reach Sirsi and Endeavor, but they couldn't
tell me anything before this issue went to the printer. I suggest that you
ask your own vendors about the possibility; others may well be able to set
this up.
Meanwhile, if you're interested in anonymous lending, you can start making
plans, talking to stakeholders, and planning publicity. Just be sure you don't
arrange a photo opportunity with the first anonymous patron! After all, we
want library users to know that we take their privacy seriously.
Ben Ostrowsky is a systems librarian at the Tampa Bay Library Consortium,
a multitype cooperative serving the libraries of West Central Florida. He earned
his M.L.S. from the University of South Florida. He has written several Web-based
applications, includ-ing a PDF bar code generator. Librarians think of him
as a good programmer, and programmers think of him as a good librarian. Vendors'
tech support departments think of him as a nuisance for demanding reliability
and good documentation. He thinks of himself as a geek-of-all-trades. His e-mail
address is ostrowb@tblc.org. |