SOIS receives grant to explore library privacy, info security

The Center for Information Policy Research at UWM’s School of Information Studies has been awarded a National Leadership Grants for Libraries award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The $90,000 grant will fund the project “Library Values & Privacy in our National Digital Strategies: Field guides, Convenings, and Conversations.”

Michael Zimmer (UWM Photo/Derek Rickert)
Michael Zimmer (UWM Photo/Derek Rickert)

The center, directed by Associate Professor Michael Zimmer, will be partnering with Data & Society, along with the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and the New York Public Library, to host a national forum exploring how libraries deal with privacy issues in the digital world. The forum will bring together library practitioners and administrators, along with technology, policy and privacy experts, to establish a national road map for a digital privacy strategy for libraries. The award was one of 25 projects funded out of 90 applications.

Along with the road map, the project will produce a series of field guides for librarians that clearly lay out important privacy and security issues. Field guides will include topics such as: privacy by design, internal library information systems, third-party library software systems, cloud-based library systems, public internet and Wi-Fi services, licensing of digital content, data security, government information requests and social media strategies.

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