The project team of the IMLS-funded Privacy Advocacy Guides for Libraries project is looking for a few school, public, and academic libraries to test out and provide feedback on one or more of the newly-created guides. The guides will be unveiled ready for testing by the beginning of June. Your contribution to this project as a test library will have future impact on privacy understanding, education, and advocacy for public, academic, and school libraries across the US. Thank you for considering your library’s participation as a test library. 

 

What is the project?

We are creating a series of guides that focus on tangible, hands-on techniques for better protecting your library's privacy and/or the privacy of your users. The guides are written to be concise, offering practical advice and resources to be used in a library by staff or administration. 

Topics of guides include:

• Digital Security Basics
• Privacy Audits
• Data Life Cycles
• How to Talk about Privacy
• Assessing Vendor Privacy
• Privacy Policies

 

What are we looking for?

Test libraries to try out our guides in real world situations for one to three months. We want a wide range of libraries from public, school, and academic libraries and from urban, rural, suburban, and small towns. Test sites will use one or more guides in their institutions and give feedback. 

We are looking for libraries that:

• Will use one or more guides for a real-world initiative between June - August*.
• Can offer a point person at the library who will be our main contact, will gather useful information from stakeholders involved, and provide us with feedback. 
• Is willing to complete a pre- and post-testing survey.

 

*Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project’s timeline has been setback. We understand many school and academic libraries may not be in session over the summer and be unable to test guides in real world settings. We deeply value the input from these library workers and encourage individuals to apply and give feedback. 

 

What is the timing for library test sites? 

We will have test site instructions to guide you through the process. 

May

• Confirm your library’s interest in being a tester
• Pre-survey sent to get a base-line of where your library is currently at in regards to various privacy topics

June - August

• Distribute first set of guides to test sites along with instructions
• Testing at libraries
• Post-survey

 

Privacy Guides Team

The team members’ expertise includes public and academic librarians, scholars, and peers involved in various ALA privacy-related work.  

 

Erin Berman is the chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee’s Privacy Subcommittee, creator of the San Jose Public Library’s Virtual Privacy Lab, and Learning Group Division Director at the Alameda County Library. 

 

Bonnie Tijerina is an affiliate researcher at Data & Society, a research institute in NYC. There, she works on projects related to online privacy and ethics in data research. Prior to that, Bonnie worked in academic libraries for over a decade. 

  

Our guides were created in partnership with Pixel By Inch, a design and branding agency based in Oakland, CA. https://www.pxidesign.com/

 

More Questions?

You can see more details about this project in the IMLS proposal submission: https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-36-19-0073-19-0. The Guides team will provide more details and instructions for interested libraries in May. You can reach out to project leads Erin Berman [log in to unmask] and Bonnie Tijerina [log in to unmask] at any time.