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Privacy Policy

Introduction

The protection of your privacy while using the University of California, San Diego Library is essential to your intellectual and academic freedom. The UC San Diego Library is supported in protecting your privacy by national and state-level laws, as well as by University of California and UC San Diego campus policies.

Where it is necessary for the Library to identify users, it is our goal to gather only the minimum information necessary and to retain that information for only as long as it is needed to complete a particular transaction.

This Privacy Policy governs the UC San Diego Library's collection, retention, and use of personal information. We suggest that you review this Privacy Policy periodically as we may update it from time to time and the Library is bound by the Privacy Policy currently in effect. This Policy was last revised on August 24, 2004.

Interacting with the Library

In order for the Library to provide services to UC San Diego students, faculty, staff, and public patrons, the Library maintains a patron record database based on information that you provide. The information we collect may include your name, address, telephone number, form of identification (e.g., driver's license), university affiliation, e-mail address, library barcode number, and an encrypted form of your self-established PIN, which allows you to view your patron record online and to request items through the San Diego Circuit.

The Library also collects information in conjunction with Library Express, Interlibrary Loan, or San Diego Circuit patron requests submitted via Roger or Melvyl, to allow us to complete the requested service transaction for you.

In the course of providing you with web-based services, the UC San Diego Library collects and stores certain information automatically through our website. It includes the date and time you access our site and the type of browser and operating system you are using. It also includes your IP address and Internet domain (.edu, .com, .org, etc), as well as the Internet address of the site from which you link to our website. We use this information on an aggregate basis to maintain, enhance, or add functionality to our web-based services.

Protecting Your Personal Information

The UC San Diego Library will not license, sell or provide your personal information to any third party unless we have your consent or as permitted in this policy. The Library shares your information within UC San Diego only for purposes of collection of overdue fines, replacement charges, damaged-book fines/charges, and associated processing fees. The Library's Billing Department retains all paper and electronic documents pertaining to and relevant for the collection of overdue fines, replacement charges, damaged-book fines/charges, and associated processing fees, according to the University of California Records Disposition Schedules Manual.

Third-Party Web sites

The UC San Diego Library's website contains links to websites and resources owned and operated by third parties, including databases and electronic journals, which the Library has licensed for the use of UC San Diego students, faculty, and staff. While every attempt is made to include user information protections in license agreements with these third parties, such as vendors for digital information products (e.g. electronic journals), your use of these websites and resources is not governed by this Privacy Policy and the UC San Diego Library cannot be held responsible for the privacy practices of the vendors of those resources. We recommend that you review the privacy policies of any website that you visit.

Cookies

A "cookie" is information stored on your workstation by a web server and used to customize your interaction with the web. Some cookies last only for the duration of the session, while others are persistent and reside on a computer's hard drive until the user deletes them or the computer is refreshed. As a matter of policy, cookies are erased from the UC San Diego Library's public computers at the beginning of each day. It is against university and library policy to share this information with external third parties except as described below in Site Security.

Most of the computers in the Library are managed by the university's Academic Computing & Media Services (ACMS) Department and are therefore not covered by this Privacy Policy. In the Geisel Library building, with the exception of infostations on each floor and the bank of computers behind the Information Desk, are managed by ACMS.

Site Security

To guard against unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and promote the correct use of information, we have implemented physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

However, while we consider these measures reasonable, no guarantee can be given that they will always prevent or protect against invalid access or improper activity. For this reason, we avoid keeping information beyond the term of its primary use and, where possible, encrypt or delete data elements that might cause activities to be linked to individual users.

To Comply With Law

Although your privacy is very important to us, under certain circumstances we cannot fully ensure that the information that we collect will not be shared with third parties. We may be forced to disclose information to the government or third parties where necessary to comply with law. In addition, in the unlikely event we need to investigate or resolve problems or inquiries associated with the operation of the Library, we may find it necessary to disclose information to parties outside of the Library, such as law enforcement or other government officials.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact Dani Cook, Associate University Librarian, Learning and User Experience by email at danicook@ucsd.edu.

Last Updated 8/24/2004