Encouraging patron adoption of privacy-protection technologies:

Abstract

Threats to our patrons’ privacy have been a long-standing concern in libraries, though our responsibilities were largely bounded by the physical library space. Today, fueled by novel technologies, the landscape is vastly different, with patrons’ privacy threatened by an ever-increasing number of entities. In this complexity, libraries have continued their commitment to privacy, with public libraries now seeking to educate patrons about privacy threats, protective measures, and tools that they might employ. This review of literature seeks to identify challenges to United States public libraries in educating and advocating for patron use of privacy-protection technology tools, drawing from research in a variety of allied fields, while suggesting future research directions. Issues identified include: substantial technology-related knowledge gaps in our patrons, librarians, and library staff; the need to support a vast number of technology tools and techniques; as well as building our understanding of the perspective of the tools’ underlying creators.