Protecting Privacy Moves into the Mainstream

For libraries in America, protecting privacy has always been a major concern. In fact, libraries in this country have been talking about privacy for library users since 1939, when privacy first showed up in the ALA Code of Ethics.

Why do librarians care about privacy? It's simple. Privacy is the foundation for our exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association. It's our right "to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others." Libraries connect people and information, and so we care greatly about library users' ability to read, learn, explore, and form their own opinions - in private.

Meanwhile, privacy has quietly developed into a mainstream concern outside of libraries as well. "Privacy Protection is Now a Centrist Issue" - it's no longer on the fringe, or seen as "just" an industry issue, a legislative issue, or a library issue.

Instead, privacy is a free speech issue - an intellectual freedom issue - and, ultimately, an American issue.