Contact: Steve Meyer stephen.meyer@wisc.edu
Last Update: December 12, 2024.
The UW–Madison Libraries, in coordination with all Universities of Wisconsin campuses, are making a change to our data retention policy for circulation transactions. Starting in 2025, circulation transactions will be “anonymized” after six months [1]. We are making this change, in coordination with all Universities of Wisconsin, to take a more proactive, privacy-first stance towards usage data. The right to privacy includes the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others. “Freedom to read” is one of tenets of librarianship and more information can be found at the American Library Association’s website: Privacy: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.
Anonymization means that we will retain a record of the circulation transaction, but it will no longer identify the individual who borrowed the item in question.
Currently, the Libraries retain the circulation history for all people in our circulation database. This information is stored so we can analyze the use of our materials and understand collection trends. We also use this information in annual reports, such as the Libraries’ submissions to national educational statistics, though the UW–Madison Libraries do not share circulation history with personally identifiable information with third parties.
While the Libraries will be moving to a default retention model policy based on anonymization, we are aware that some people are interested in having the Libraries store this data for their own use. To support this user preference, we have also launched an opt-in loan history database which will retain individuals’ history dating back to May 2015, allowing them to view and download circulation records.
More information about your loan history is available on the Libraries’ Website.
[1] Archival materials and those identified as “special collections” are considered rare and typically extremely valuable holdings. As a result, loan data for these materials have a ten year retention schedule.