[otterlicious]

I worked my first couple years of college as a clerk at the main campus library. I remember the librarian assigned to the Political Science department among others explaining that our circulation software had been deliberately configured to no longer store students' borrowing history after the PATRIOT Act was passed.

My city's public library runs the same software and now it has a My Reading History feature which in my city's implementation is disabled by default. If you log in to your library account online and it doesn't display your borrowing history you can have reasonable confidence your library isn't storing it, and would only be actively forwarding it to the feds if they had a warrant or NSL, etc.

It's disappointing but not surprising that the same stalwart approach to privacy isn't being enforced on the digital options. Librarians who care like the aforementioned one likely pushed back only to be told it was a necessary evil of the DRM that is "required" to make this possible, and if they don't like it there are still physical books.

But today we have alternatives like controlled digital lending that keeps the data in libraries' hands. If privacy-respecting digital options are important to you, you should definitely let your library know!

[Lammy]

I feel privileged to have SFPL with all their electronic lending support, JSTOR access, etc. They even publish their own privacy explanation: https://sfpl.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/privacyinventor...