Public Libraries are committed to protecting the borrowing information of patrons, and their right to access information that is controversial, sensitive or personal, without fear of embarrassment or humiliation.
- New York State Law (Civil Practice Laws and Rules sec 2307 §4509) guarantees the confidentiality of library patron borrowing records. Your records can only be viewed upon presentation of a subpoena. Under New York State Law, if you are signing for a library card for someone under 18, the library is, under the above law, prohibited from revealing that minor’s borrowed materials to you.
- The information in your patron record is the property of the library that is chartered to serve your home address. While other libraries have access to that data, no other library can use that data for anything other than library transactions. Your home library can use the data for library mailings. If the library has a Friends group, they can provide your contact information to the group, but not your borrowing history. If you do not wish to have the Friends group to have your name, address, email and telephone, notify the library and you will be removed from that list.
- Your borrowing history. As soon as you return an item within the due date, the link to that item is deleted from your patron record. However, the software retains in the item’s record, the name of the last person who took it out and the name of the current borrower of the item. In addition, if you owe a fine or have an outstanding bill that information stays on your record until six months after payment has been received. The software also keeps the items you have on your hold list.
- Reading History Option: If you elect to use the reading history option, the software will remember all items you checked out even after you return them. This information is protected under the privacy laws and can only be accessed by you or by the library if presented with a subpoena. You can, at any time, delete items from your reading history and those items will no longer be included. For people who do not choose the reading history options, no history of checked out items is kept.
- eNotices: When you have provided an e-mail address to the library, notices about items you have requested or fine notices are sent via e-mail, be aware that the e-mail message will include the title of the item. Alternative message types that do not include title information are available.
- eResources and Third-Party Services: MHLS works with a variety of partners to provide eContent, eResources, and other functionality (e.g.,
eBooks, eAudiobooks, database social media sharing) to our patrons. Before using or accessing these items, patrons should read the privacy
policy of the company that is providing the service. - Website Analytics: In order to improve the usefulness of our web site, we automatically collect overall usage statistics using Google Analytics. This information includes the IP address of the visitor, the computer and web browser type, the pages used, the time and date, and any errors that occurred. To acquire this information, Google Analytics may set its own cookies on your computer. For information on Google’s cookie policies and privacy policies, please see Google’s Privacy Policy. You may prevent Google Analytics cookies and tracking on all sites by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out tool.
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