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Librarians in uproar after borrowing record of teenage Haruki Murakami is leaked
- Paul_S 11y agoOnce the book is returned isn't it enough to record it in aggregate and remove the record from the personal file? Maybe they should change the way they keep records. Or is that a police thing from way back that requires them to keep a record of all the books you have borrowed. In which case I'm one step ahead as I spent my highschool in the library and almost never checked anything out. They will never find out all the terrible fantasy and sci-fi novels I read.
- msbarnett 11y ago> Once the book is returned isn't it enough to record it in aggregate and remove the record from the personal file? Maybe they should change the way they keep records. These records are ~50 years old, pre the computerization of library borrowing records. It's a fair bet record keeping has changed in the intervening decades.
- mc32 11y agoSo the Kobe daily dismisses the criticism by essentially claiming he's a public figure and thus fair game but also admit to not obtaining consent from the other book borrowers. On the other hand, the information was obtained and "leaked" by someone who stumbled upon the library cards while disposing old books and ancillary things from an old library.... It reminds me of the cardfile case in New York[1] somewhere that brought insight into the lives of adolescents/young adults who attended some special preparatory kind of institution for kids but whose history had almost completely been lost... [1]http://www.slate.com/articles/life/permanent_record/features/2011/permanent_record/how_i_found_the_report_cards_and_how_they_changed_my_life.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/permanent_record/features...
- waterlesscloud 11y agoWhy would this record even exist? What purpose does it serve?
- dec0dedab0de 11y agoLibrary books used to have a little pocket stuck to the back cover, with a lined card inside. If you wanted to borrow a book, you would take out the card, put your name on the next line, and give it to the librarian. When you gave the book back, the card was put back into the pocket. The system was to keep track of who had borrowed a book, so that they could be tracked down if it was not returned. I remember it being really fun in grade school, to realize I had checked out the same book as an older friend.
- gcb0 11y agoI'm from a more metropolitan area i guess. we used library card numbers on those instead of names
- woodman 11y ago> I'm from a more metropolitan area i guess. I would be surprised if you are from somewhere more metropolitan than Kobe Japan [0]. It is much more likely that you are just young. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keihanshin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keihanshin
- DawkinsGawd 11y agoPopulation density is considerably less than that of NYC. Scaling NYC up to 13,000 km² would put the population 90 million
- woodman 11y agoThe population density is also much less if we scaled the population of my apartment up to 13,000 km², but that isn't how metropolitan areas are traditionally measured. The NYC metro area includes three states, lots of sprawl - so it is much less dense.
- alex_doom 11y agoI love the comment someone left on that article. --- Haiku of the Week: When I eat deep-fried oysters, I am lonely, But they are delicious. Only Haruki-san can do this without trying. But not without frying.
- yongjik 11y agoI'm not sure how I feel on this. On one hand, privacy is important, but on the other hand, if someone stumbled upon a reading record of teenage Goethe or Twain, no scholar would say "It's their privacy! We shouldn't look at them!"
- celticninja 11y agoDifferences being your examples are dead and someone stumbled across them. This is a car of a live author having his details leaked.
- stevesearer 11y agoDoes that hold up in the modern sense of internet browsing history? If someone stumbles across my browsing history, they cannot publish it while I am living, but can once I am dead? Sounds like Haruki Murakami should have installed uBlock Origin and that the library shouldn't have enforced a real names policy :)
- imgabe 11y agoYour browser doesn't have a professional code of ethics that prohibits sharing that information (although maybe it should). Librarians do, and they take it very seriously. That's why they're upset.
- stevesearer 11y agoTotally understand why they're upset. My comment was more directed toward wondering what being dead has to do with something like a library checkout history being private or not as the parent suggested. It would seem that librarians would desire to keep such details private regardless of the person's status of living or dead.
- Retra 11y agoYou don't understand why a dead person's privacy is less important than a live one's? Is that really the problem you're having right here?
- nsns 11y agoI find "Librarians in uproar" a wonderful oxymoron.
- sliverstorm 11y agoIt's not an oxymoron so much as the sort of thing Monty Python could have done a great sketch about :)
- monroepe 11y agoMakes me chuckle just thinking of the potential.
- eli 11y agoIt's amusing choice of phrase, but librarians have been very vocal on privacy and civil rights historically.
- flashman 11y agoAnd yet, I've never heard librarians question whether they should be retaining borrower records. If I don't trust the government not to abuse those records, why would I trust some other group of civil servants? Why do librarians still need to know I borrowed a book more than, say, a few days after I return it? If they need analytics, why can't they anonymise the borrower ID?
- dalke 11y ago> I've never heard librarians question whether they should be retaining borrower records. It is the ALA policy that such records should regularly be purged from the system. For example, quoting from http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=interpretations&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=34114 http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=interpretations&Temp... : > It is the responsibility of library staff to destroy information in confidential or privacy protected records in order to protect from unauthorized disclosure. Information that should be regularly purged or shredded includes personally identifiable information on library resource use, material circulation history, and security / surveillance tapes and logs. You can see some of the effects of this policy at http://ask.metafilter.com/228587/What-are-the-negative-results-of-purging-library-records http://ask.metafilter.com/228587/What-are-the-negative-resul... , regarding how some libraries purge their records more frequently, as part of the opposition to section 215 of the Patriot Act: > The library I worked at would delete the record of what a patron borrowed as soon as the return is processed. ... > Libraries have long purged patron records Or from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-07-03/news/0307030274_1_library-records-larger-libraries-largest-library-systems http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-07-03/news/030703027... : > Because of space limits, the Chicago Public Library, one of the largest library systems in the country, long has purged unnecessary circulation records each day and expunges Internet caches every 30 minutes, said spokeswoman Margot Holland. ... > For years, Skokie's library has purged records on borrowed materials once they're returned. Recently, it installed software to delete records of Internet use. ... > Sarah Meisels, Wheaton's library director, noted that Wheaton for years has purged circulation records as soon as they are no longer needed, making it practically impossible to comply with the Patriot Act. > In part because the Patriot Act is so rarely invoked, and also because libraries historically have gone to lengths to preserve patrons' privacy, allowing for the act is almost a moot point, Meisels said. You say you've "never heard librarians question whether they should be retaining borrower records." How much have you listened to libraries talk about their retention policies to know if they have been saying anything? Bear in mind also that in the US something like 48 of the states have special privacy laws for library records.
- dates 11y agoactual list is behind a japanese paywall here ^_^ http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/bunka/201510/0008458279.shtml http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/bunka/201510/0008458279.shtml
- krapp 11y agoThe scholarly value of these records is obvious, but I don't see much of a public interest angle behind publishing them. Is the Kobe Shimbun hoping its readers will wonder whether or not this famous writer had some controversial or salacious reading habits? Why not get his permission and at least try to get an interview putting them into some context?
- intopieces 11y ago>The scholarly value of these records is obvious Is it? Just because someone checked out a book doesn't mean they read the book. And just because they read a book doesn't mean they liked it, remembered it, or were influenced by it. This information has no context. I see no value in them whatsoever.
- krapp 11y agoFair enough, maybe "obvious" is too strong. "Arguable," maybe, or worth considering.
- zck 11y agoHas anyone asked Murakami what he thinks? It certainly shouldn't determine what's moral or not, but it would be very interesting.
- hackuser 11y agoIt's interesting that records, such as library books read, that were common before the modern Internet are considered private, but if the records are related to the Internet, such as web pages read (or every place I go, everyone I talk to, everything I say, etc.), many people say they don't understand why their privacy is important.
- fraserharris 11y agoThere is a subtlety involved: - people care if other people know what they have read - people care much less if a machine knows what they have read
- noobermin 11y agoI think this sums up the attitude of most of those confounded young'un Millennials, myself included. I like the idea that Youtube remembers the videos I've watched so that it rec's others, it's a useful feature of the site. The fact that someone else, a person, could see that information, that is upsetting. It's probably difficult to have one without the other, however.
- vectorjohn 11y agoThis has nothing to do with the OP / what library books were read. The library certainly does know what you read. Likewise, Google and even real people at Google may know what you watched. But that's not surprising. It's to be expected. The real comparison is if Google gave that information, de-anonymized, to advertisers. Then there would be an issue.
- mordocai 11y agoDifficult but not impossible. Client side encryption on such data can fix this, but can be difficult to implement in a good way that is transparent to users. You can even still submit/keep anonymized information about videos viewed. In almost every current business case it probably isn't worth it to bother.
- threatofrain 11y ago
- randyrand 11y agoCitizens in uproar at librarians for keeping unanonymized decode long records! p.s. I do not know who actually makes the decision to keep records....is it law in japan?
- unsignedint 11y agoI feel there's some political agenda to this uproar. Librarians and/or librarian organization in Japan are have reasons for concerns as there are some movements in munincipalities delegating operation of their public libraries to commercial enterprises. This is causing bit of concerns for expecations of privacy for patron's checkout record. Company called Culture Convenience Club, operator of large book/media chain Tsutaya, now operates some public libraries in Japan, which basically runs both a library and a book store in the premise; and patron can optionally associate their store card with library card, so each checkout from libraries would count toward their in-store point, I guess in return for the record they will keep about that checkout. (There have been some questionable book selection/discard policies some take as conflict of interest, but that's another story...) So I feel, at least partially, they are using this as opportunity to increase public awareness of their position.