Henry Seymour Library Privacy Policy
Introduction
The Henry Seymour Library is committed to the protection of privacy for its patrons in compliance with all federal and state laws. In addition, Seymour Library ascribes to the American Library Association’s Code of Ethics guiding principle on privacy which states, “We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
All personally identifiable information gathered by Seymour Library in the course of serving patrons is considered confidential. While patron information may be shared between departments in Seymour Library to facilitate patron services, the Library will not reveal the identities of individual users or reveal what information sources or services patrons consult to parties outside the Library, except in the case of compliance with law enforcement. This policy applies to all resources and services regardless of format or means of delivery. Any request for confidential information regarding patron records or transactions coming from a law enforcement officer or investigative agent of the state or federal governments, must be referred to the Director of the Library.
Use of resources at Seymour Library
Seymour Library collects only the minimum amount of confidential information necessary, and in all cases the Library avoids creating or retaining records with confidential information beyond the period needed to provide services. User data may be aggregated and retained for a reasonable period of time, after which the data is discarded or anonymized.
We receive personally identifiable information from the Knox administration indicating defining members of our academic community. Seymour Library also collects personally identifiable information from members of the surrounding community if they wish to borrow materials from our library. This information is necessary to provide borrowing and lending services: notifying you of the availability of your loan(s); locating or recalling library materials; processing overdue notices and fines; resolving billing matters: or investigating violations of Library circulation policies. Personal identifying information is also used in the same way to facilitate interlibrary loan transactions.
Reference and Information Services
When you use our reference email and/or chat services, we use the personally identifying information for the purpose of completing reference transactions. The Library keeps general statistics about its reference services and personal information is not retained longer than necessary and is later anonymized for statistical reporting.
Use of the Library’s websites
Seymour Library will neither track nor record information about specific individuals and their visits to the library websites. Information collected and stored automatically as patrons browse the library’s website includes or may include:
the internet domain and IP address from which the user accesses the website
the type of browser and operating system used to access the site
the date and time of access to the site
the page(s) visited
The library uses information about the number of visitors to each page and the types of technology the visitors use to help it make decisions about updating the website.
Information collected by third-party tools used by Seymour Library
Seymour Library subscribes to databases and other online services, and its website contains links to a wide range of other websites. Some of these third-party services allow you to create personal accounts. We strongly urge you to carefully read the policies associated with these resources when you use them, because personal information that you provide could be mined for marketing or other purposes. These policies and use of private information by third-parties are not within Seymour Library’s ability to control. We urge you to carefully consider setting up personal accounts on third party resources. Seymour Library does not have control over or access to these accounts or the use of the information you provide there.
If you have concerns related to the privacy and confidentiality of your information when you use services provided by Seymour Library, please contact the Director of the Library, Anne Thomason (athomason@knox.edu).