The public library as a place for the sharing of culture

This case study of Newcastle Libraries was written by myself in December 2016 for inclusion in Fred Saunderson's and Gill Hamilton's book Open licensing for cultural heritage  published August 2017. This is one of two contributions published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (the other being Merete Sanderhoff's "Small steps, big impact: how SMK became SMK Open").

Newcastle Libraries are the public libraries serving the citizens of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Newcastle is the biggest city in the North East of England and its library service, in particular the City Library, attracts users from across the region and beyond. The City Library houses the local studies and family history collections - this section also regularly receives requests and enquiries from overseas customers.

In the early 2000s a funded project allowed Newcastle Libraries to digitise a large part of its local history photographic collections and to publish them on a dedicated website called Tyneside Life and Times. However, a few years later the website encountered technical difficulties and the photographs were moved to the Flickr image hosting platform in June 2009. When the Flickr albums were created the images’ legal status appeared as the default copyright setting. Download was originally disabled but this was changed early on, although this particular feature was never publicised. Apart from the Torday collection (a thousand photographs of 1960s-1970s Newcastle) which was digitised by a volunteer and uploaded to a new album, the historic images collection on Flickr has only been extended on an ad hoc basis.

In 2015 I started developing at Newcastle Libraries the Commons are forever project, with support from the Carnegie UK Trust’s Library Lab programme. Commons are forever aimed to empower people and inform them of their rights to use and re-use works that are either in the public domain or available under an open licence, and encourage them to in turn share their creations with others. The project took the form of a series of events where members of the public were invited to create their own artworks in workshops facilitated by local artists, while learning about copyright and where to find free-to-use content.

A secondary goal of the project was to firmly re-position the library service as a place for the sharing of culture. Public libraries are traditionally making knowledge and culture accessible through loaning materials to members of the community, but I believe raising awareness of works that are out of copyright - in the public domain i.e. that belong to all - or under open licenses is also part of libraries’ role. On that basis, it made sense to me to use Commons are forever to also promote resources that are part of Newcastle Libraries’ collections and have entered the public domain. Since we were promoting free-to-use materials as part of the project we also needed to apply those sharing principles to our collections and our services.

The first step would be to correctly re-label the local history images on Flickr from “copyright - all rights reserved” to “public domain”. In order to get this agreed and done I started talking to colleagues in June 2015. It emerged that the issue was less about owning copyright over the digitised pictures and more about enforcing an indication of provenance: people who were not using our pictures for commercial ventures should be able to use them for free but be obliged to mention they were from our collections. However, it was felt that claiming copyright was still important because we were the keepers of the collection: if people want to make money from using our pictures then the library should get something too, and it should be clear that the images came from Newcastle Libraries. As we were selling copies of our pictures, the potential loss of income was mentioned - at a time of budget reductions even the small amount we were making may become significant.

Swing Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1889
From the Newcastle City Library Photographic Collection

After this initial meeting the conversation stalled as changing this particular policy which had been in place for a while was not part of the team’s priorities. The topic was picked up on several occasions over the following year and the number of people involved in the discussions was extended to the wider group of librarians. To get colleagues to understand why I wanted the Flickr images’ status changed from in copyright to public domain I used arguments such as: “because you’re trying to claim rights that you probably don’t have, what we are doing now is slightly illegal but also ethically wrong”!

Towards the end of the Commons are forever project the focus moved from sharing creative works to sharing data and information collected by the library service. We released performance statistics and usage figures as open data - using the UK Open Government Licence (OGL) which allows anyone to re-use the information in any way, as long as the source of the information is credited. In April 2016 we ran a one-day hackathon when we invited members of the community to “play” with our open data. For the occasion we were also given permission to publish 31 digitised historical maps of Newcastle from the libraries’ collections - in the public domain, clearly labelled as such in a Flickr album. The maps proved quite popular, with several participants using them to superimpose “old Newcastle” to a current map to highlight the evolution of the city centre.

I think what happened with the maps helped to show colleagues what releasing our information and content meant, and more importantly that it did not harm the library service. On the contrary, it was interesting to see what citizens had done with our maps when appropriating them - re-using them in ways we had not thought of and contributing to the visibility and reach of our collections.

Plan de Newcastle ou Neuchastel
From the Newcastle Libraries collection

In August 2016 we changed the status of our local history images on Flickr to “public domain”. Each album now bears the mention:

“These images are, to the best of our knowledge, in the public domain. You are welcome to use them in any way you like – we would love it if you could say you got them from the Newcastle City Library Photographic Collection. If you want to use the images for commercial purposes we can provide you with a high quality digital image for a fee – just contact us.”

On the spur of the moment, it was also decided to move the Torday collection (the copyright of which had been assigned to Newcastle Libraries) into the public domain - under CC0.

We were pleased to see this initiative bear fruits a few months later, with an article in a local newspaper about Newcastle’s old Odeon cinema featuring several of our Flickr images - all in the public domain but nevertheless used with the mention “from the Newcastle City Library Photographic Collection”.

Around the same time we changed the status of of our local history images on Flickr to “public domain”, we also decided to stop using OGL for our open data and use CC0 instead, making it even easier for our information to be re-used.

In December 2016 we went further: we librarians agreed that in the future all Newcastle Libraries collections and documents published online would be made open by default. All public domain materials digitised from our collections will be clearly labelled as such when published. Materials created by library staff - images, event pictures, information booklets, training guides, etc. - will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution license. In 2017 we will start making more of our content available via platforms such as Flickr and GitHub.

Supporting citizens with protecting their privacy online

This post is based on my talk at the CILIP Conference on 6th July, which I wrote-up for K & IM Refer: Journal of the Knowledge and Information Management Group (CILIP). This article has been published online as part of K & IM Refer Autumn 2017 issue.

All the technology around us - cameras, phones, our internet use, online communications, etc. - collects data about us. For example: most of us carry a smartphone around all the time. How many of us are fully aware that if the GPS is on, our phone company can pinpoint where we are with an accuracy of 5 to 8 meters? If the phone company knows, who may also have access to our location data? Are we comfortable with this situation? Would you change your behaviour and turn off your GPS when you don't use it now you know this, or would you decide the convenience outweighs the disadvantages?

Privacy is about choice. As citizens, we need to be aware of this situation to be able to make informed decisions about whether we want to protect some of our data and how much effort we are ready to put into protecting our privacy. Once we have the facts we also need the skills: we need to know about tips and tools available to help us protect our information.

Libraries defend people's rights

I believe that libraries exist to defend people’s right to enrich and improve their own lives, their environment and society. We library and information professionals make this happen by facilitating access to and the sharing of information, knowledge and culture.

In many sectors library and information professionals already devise and deliver digital skills training, ranging from a basic introduction to computers to searching online resources effectively. Knowing how to protect one’s privacy online is part of those digital literacy skills everyone should have; that's why at Newcastle Libraries we have started looking into how we could best help our citizens.

Learning about privacy issues and tools

Our team's awareness of privacy issues originally came from reading technology articles or from initiatives in libraries in other countries such as France or the USA. American librarians have created very useful materials that are a good place for us in the UK to start learning – I would particularly recommend the Library Freedom Project and the Data Privacy Project.

In Scotland the Scottish PEN has also been delivering Libraries for privacy: digital security workshops with support from CILIP Scotland and the Scottish Library and Information Council. I was able to attend one of those workshops, which inspired me to create a short training session for colleagues at Newcastle Libraries. I initially ran two sessions for librarians and senior managers in March 2017, and will be rolling it out to as many staff as possible this autumn. The first two sessions included time for us to discuss and decide what we wanted to do in our service regarding online privacy.

Initiatives for citizens

We wanted to offer information and training about protecting one's privacy online to local citizens. In 2016 we had already co-organised two cryptoparties; we decided we should host some more. A cryptoparty is an informal gathering of individuals to discuss and learn about tips and tools for privacy and security in our digital world. We co-organised ours with local members of the Open Rights Group who have the relevant technological knowledge that we might lack (!) - in partnership with the same individuals, our next cryptoparty will take place in November.

We have also noticed that cryptoparties tend to attract citizens who are already aware of privacy issues. How do we reach out to those who do not (yet) have that awareness? It is something that we are still exploring. One idea we want to implement is to include privacy among the topics covered in our digital skills sessions, but we are also trying to find other ways to, in a way, talk about privacy in a skills session without first telling people that we are.

Standing up for citizens' privacy

With Newcastle Libraries colleagues we felt that we could not be teaching citizens about tools to protect their privacy on the Internet and yet say: “By the way, this does not apply when you are using library computers or services”! We want to offer our computer users an Internet browser with enhanced privacy features – ideally, this would be Firefox with DuckDuckGo as the default search engine plus add-ons such as HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger. I would love for us to offer Tor Browser or even for the library to be a Tor relay; however, I thought asking first for Firefox would be a lot less controversial... We are in conversation with our IT department; they have objections but these are about the practicalities of applying updates to the Firefox browser, which they cannot manage centrally like they currently do for Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

An easier thing we can and will do is to be more transparent to citizens about how their information is handled when they use Newcastle Libraries services. When you use a library computer, you should be aware that our IT department records which websites you visit and that this information is kept for 12 months. When you use our e-books platform, we should tell you before you login what our supplier does with your data. It may take some time but it is relatively easy for us to add this kind of information on our website and other materials.

Once we start with this work we can review what we record – should we really be keeping your browsing history for this long? What is it used for; are we legally obliged to do so? Regarding third-party providers of library services, we should be requesting that they take steps to protect your data to our standards.

In truth, what we need is a privacy policy – the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom has some fantastic information and templates adapted to the US context but that still gives us some useful pointers. Privacy terms and policies is a bigger piece of work but it is one we can build one chapter at a time, in order to support citizens with protecting their privacy online.

DataPrivacyNY, part 2: Privacy in a digital age seminar

I was very lucky to be invited by the Carnegie UK Trust to a study trip to New York on public libraries and online data privacy, which took place 15 to 19 May. In part 1 I wrote up my notes from the introductions to the topic and from a very useful meeting we had with the team at the New York Public Library.

On 17 May our group took part in a seminar entitled Privacy in a digital age which was held at the offices of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. The keynote speaker was Bruce Schneier, a technology security expert, with a response by Deborah Caldwell-Stone of the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. When I first read the programme I thought: "Bruce Schneier? That sounds familiar... Isn't he the cybersecurity guy who wrote an afterword for Cory Doctorow's Little Brother?!" I may be a bit of a geek but: I was right - and his afterword, just like Doctorow's whole novel, is worth reading!

Note: the seminar was recorded - a transcript is available from the Carnegie Council, while the video of the full seminar (2 hours 12 minutes) and a highlights video (24 minutes) have also been published.

Albert Tucker from the Carnegie UK Trust was chairing the seminar. Ciara Eastell started it off with a short overview of the situation of public libraries in the UK and their role in privacy issues. She explained how public libraries are often the first and last resort for people to access online services and get support to do so. She highlighted the role of staff in providing this support, mentioning some Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) initiatives such as the training for all public library staff which accompanies the SCL Information Offer, the digital leaders training and the Innovators Network. However, privacy is not a topic staff are specifically trained on, and few UK public libraries have privacy policies.
Ciara frankly said that "the issue of data privacy is not one that ranks highly on the list of library leaders today" as austerity and budget cuts are much more pressing. 

But she also said that Newcastle Libraries [yes, that's us and fellow CryptoParty Newcastle organisers!!] are showing new possibilities regarding the potential of libraries around privacy.

Bruce Schneier started his speech by saying that all the technology around us - cameras, phones, our internet use, online communications, etc. - collects data about us. This data is increasingly easy to save and search, so much so that it is now easier to save everything than to figure out what to save. You can come back to this data later and search for specific words or patterns or incidents (this is mostly done by computers).

Bruce Schneier described metadata as data a system needs to operate. "Metadata is surveillance data", especially since "nobody ever lies to their search engine".

"Surveillance is the business model of the Internet."

Most of this data is held by corporations. We all know that the reason Facebook is free is that we are not the customer, we're the product. Data is valuable.

"Imagine if you had to alert the police every time you make a new friend... You laugh but you all alert Facebook."

The NSA and other similar organisations saw all this data being collected and thought of taking advantage of it. "Really we have a public-private surveillance partnership."

This situation has an impact on political liberty and justice, as well as causing problems of self-censorship. It also affects our security.

How do we fix this? We need security for privacy. And privacy is a part of security. We need to prioritise security over surveillance. Unfortunately secrecy means there isn't a robust debate in our society about this.

An example of this is all the talk about "encryption backdoors". Encryption backdoors are technically impossible: either you make a system secure or you make it not secure.

Our data together has enormous value to us collectively; our personal data has enormous value to us individually. Take medical data: it is very valuable for researchers when grouped together, yet sensitive for each individual when looked at separately.

"Data is the pollution problem of the information age": all processors produce it, it stays around. How do we deal with it? [I would not like to have to answer this question in an exam!!]

Deborah Caldwell-Stone then explained the position of librarians on the issue of privacy in a digital age. Librarians have a tradition of confidentiality; protecting user privacy has long been part of the focus of ALA and of the library profession.

According to a Pew research people trust their library - and use it to access to information.

Librarians are the intermediaries in the fight against surveillance. The main focus is on education, so people can make good decisions about protecting their privacy. For example, San José Public Library offers on its website a virtual privacy lab, which anyone can use to learn about privacy and generate a customised toolkit that fits their needs. The tools promoted include Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, DuckDuckGo, Tor Browser... 

"It does no good to teach someone about Tor Browser and not put Tor Browser on the libraries' computers."

Deborah Caldwell-Stone mentioned several initiatives, including:

• the ALA's Choose Privacy Week, which is held annually in May to raise awareness of the issues and best practice among librarians;
• the Library Freedom Project: training for librarians so they can then train their customers;
• the Data Privacy Project at Brooklyn Public Library, which included training for librarians across New York City and is now an online course;
• the work of Bill Marden at the New York Public Library on developing contracts with systems and resources suppliers that include privacy standards.

The seminar was then opened to questions and comments from participants; here are a few.

• How do we make privacy a broader topic plus change perceptions of privacy as a concern reserved for "people in tin-foil hats"?
  Bruce Schneier: "Privacy is not about something to hide, it's about how I choose to present myself to the world."
• "The privacy thing sometimes I feel I care about it more than other people do", said a participant [who wasn't me, I promise!!]
• There is sometimes a tension with data and how useful collecting it and using it can also be for libraries.
  Deborah Caldwell-Stone recommended reading Becky Yoose's article on de-identification and patron data.
• How can we reconcile the fact librarians are campaigning for privacy and pressure from government against privacy?
  Deborah Caldwell-Stone: it's the role of the professional association; ALA can say a lot of things that a local librarian can't. Some library directors have also been very good at pitching privacy as a bipartisan issue.
• What should librarians do about being asked to give up one thing i.e. their or their users' information and privacy - if they want another e.g. a software product for their library?
  Bruce Schneier: "We have collectively decided that we were going to make the internet free in exchange for privacy" but we don't have to. Software and tools don't have to be built that way.
• "I'd like to think that libraries will remain a sanctuary for privacy and freedom of information."

Closing remark from Bruce Schneier: privacy in a digital age is about changing perceptions. Librarians make powerful statements when: using warrant canaries, offering Tor Browser in libraries...

After the seminar our group got a chance for a more in-depth chat with Deborah Caldwell-Stone. She explained that for ALA the case for privacy and libraries started in 1939, with a Library Bill of Rights which included privacy in response to the situation in nazi Germany where librarians were being asked to inform the police on their customers. There have been several other cases of US librarians taking a stand for privacy since then e.g. 1950s, 1992 because of the Library Awareness Program, in 2001 in response to the Patriot Act... Deborah told us about the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) materials available on the topic, and made recommendations on what librarians could do.

1. Check whether your institution has a privacy policy and whether it needs to be created or updated. OIF has a toolkit for US librarians on how to develop or revise their privacy policy.
2. Look into encrypting your institution's own data and website. ALA has partnered with Let's Encrypt to help librarians do that.
3. Implement best practice on different aspects of privacy in your institution. On the OIF website there are guidelines on best practice in relation to different topics e.g. e-book lending, library management systems, public access computers... For each set of guidelines there are corresponding checklists which summarise and prioritise (level 1, 2 and 3) what librarians should be looking to implement first.
   To put these measures in place you might need to figure out how to convince the chief IT person in your institution. Tip: pitch the idea in a way that benefits them e.g. it will improve security.
4. Engage with your local community, create a place for dialogue around privacy. OIF has guides for hosting a discussion on privacy.
5. Reach out to communities and provide opportunities for citizens to learn to protect their information.
6. Advocate for better privacy laws, work with your legislator to change the law. Deborah described it as "grappling in the trenches with law makers and regulators"!

DataPrivacyNY, part 1: introductions + NYPL

I was very lucky to be invited by the Carnegie UK Trust to a study trip to New York on public libraries and online data privacy, which took place 15 to 19 May. For me, it was an amazing opportunity to learn from the people we met but also from the other members of our group.
You can look up the tweets under the hashtag #DataPrivacyNY and there will be articles on the Carnegie UK Trust blog from each member of our group.
Here I will simply try to tidy up my notes in a series of three (possibly quite long) posts. (I seem to have a lot of notes!) Usual disclaimer: my notes are a reflection of my personal understanding of what I think people said.


On the first day we had an introduction to the topic of online data privacy as well as an overview of US public libraries, before going on to hear from the team at the New York Public Library.

For our first session we were greeted at the Carnegie Corporation of New York offices by Geri Mannion, who heads the Corporation's US democracy programme. Geri explained that many US public libraries are active in this area: for example with a "citizenship corner" in the library, a place where people - immigrants and US citizens - go to learn about their rights. Some libraries also run sessions to help people apply for naturalisation.

Joel Rosenthal, president of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, then led a discussion on privacy and ethics especially in the United States.

The Carnegie trusts are involved in education, democracy, citizen empowerment, libraries... all areas and institutions that are about "giving each individual person the opportunity to think for his- or herself".

We all have a need for privacy ("something to hide"), be that in our personal life (we all have curtains in our house!) or professional life (you might need to talk about an issue with your supervisor but not share it with everyone else). Some professional roles are restricted, where you have to be careful what you share or do because people can find out about it (e.g. you've donated money to an organisation and your name appears on a public register) and it might discredit your professional activities.

There seems to be different sensibilities regarding privacy in the USA, in the UK, and in the rest of Europe.
The right to privacy has been used against the registration of people on matters relating to health or immigration: why should the government have a list of such people? In the US that same argument has also been used against the registration of individuals who own firearms.
Privacy is a question of choice: making an informed choice about giving away personal information. But sometimes we have to give away our personal information in order to access an online service (e.g. Facebook) or further information.
On public computers in libraries there is a default browser, which may not be the best one to help users protect their online privacy - where is the choice there? It was pointed out that librarians traditionally have the role of selecting what is "best" e.g. in terms of curating book collections and sources of information - does this need to apply to online tools on public computers too?
Internet companies protect their data very well - how do we turn this situation over and get citizens to access that information, and control their own information themselves?

Next Pam Sandlian-Smith, director of Anythink Libraries (public library service near Denver, Colorado) and President-Elect of the Public Library Association gave us an overview of public libraries in the country.

"The sense of confidentiality is part of our DNA in libraries."

The Public Library Association (PLA) is a branch of the American Library Association (ALA). Some of PLA's initiatives include: digital literacy (developing staff skills first), Every child ready to read (helping parents develop their child's literacy in their early years), Project Outcome (making sure library services are counting the right things to show their impact).
In the USA there are over 16,000 public libraries, including over 10,000 in rural areas. There are similar perceptions and support for public libraries from residents in the US as in the UK (as highlighted in the Carnegie UK Trust's Shining a light report). But there are also similar challenges with some communities having an outdated image of their library and not wanting it to change.
Public libraries around the US have set up a wide range of initiatives, activities and services: some offer summer lunch programmes, others have been working on rethinking the library space, children summer reading programmes, ballet in the library, festival to pass on (transgenerational) skills, social workers inviting homeless people and library staff to enjoy a concert and breakfast together...



Anythink Libraries has recently invested in a new campaign to promote the library and its services. "The public library is your place" video (see above) will be aired on TV and there will be posters inside buses. Pam said that devoting money to do this is hard because of budget constraints but absolutely essential since it's about trying to help the community understand everything the library has to offer (as it's about much more than books...) Anythink will also be encouraging the local community to share their stories on social media about how and why they use their library - it's a much more powerful message when it's citizens rather than librarians saying "the library is wonderful!"


From an overview of public libraries in the USA to an overview of online data privacy: next was David Greene, Director Civil Liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
EFF "promotes and fights for the rights of users of digital technologies". It is composed of three main teams: lawyers, activists, technologists.

(I was very excited to get a new sticker for my laptop!!)

There is some information online that we knowingly transmit - e.g. when we give our details on an online form - and some that we don't - e.g. our location: we're not always aware we are sharing it.
Metadata (like the location, the time, the recipient) and content (what the message actually says) are treated differently in law and by individuals. David said he doesn't like the term metadata because it makes it sound like it's not important; however metadata about communications can reveal a lot about a person, even without having the content.
In the US there is something called the "third party doctrine": if you have willingly given information such as metadata to a third party then law enforcement can access it. This started a long time ago and applied to letters, phone calls via a human operator... but now it also applies to the Internet, which raises huge problems for privacy.

"There's no such thing as the Internet of Things - it's just putting lots of other people's computers inside your house."

Tracking means the user loses control of their information: we don't know who else on the Internet is also going to get our information.
HTTPS and Tor are tools that can be used to keep some information hidden. By using HTTPS (i.e. encryption) all anyone sitting between the Internet user and the website they are sending that information to will get is the "to" (the name of the website) and "from" (the user's location). The user does have to trust that the website also has good privacy practices. Tor will mask the user's location. See Tor and HTTPS for diagrams of what information can be retrieved by eavesdroppers when using the tools - image 1: when you use neither; image 2: when you use HTTPS; image 3: when you use Tor; image 4: when you use both.

What eavesdroppers can and can't see when you use HTTPS
(Cropped - original image published by EFF under a Creative Commons Attribution licence)

Thoughts for librarians:

• Targeted and vulnerable communities may feel discouraged from using libraries because of data sharing i.e. libraries' inability to guarantee their privacy.
• Libraries like to offer customers "Amazon-like experiences" but at the same time librarians don't like to share their customers' information. So if you want to offer these types of services you need to: give people the option to opt in and educate them about what they're giving up when they sign up; be transparent about how their information is being used and who it is being shared with.
• "Collect as little as possible and then retain even less".
• Build privacy as a feature.
• Produce transparency reports.

Later we met with Tony Ageh, Michelle Mayes and Bill Marden of the New York Public Library (yes, in a meeting room at the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman building!) The New York Public Library (NYPL) network is composed of 4 research libraries and 88 branch libraries across Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx (Brooklyn and Queens each have their own public library network). NYPL is partly funded by the City of New York and by private donations.

NYPL published its revised privacy policy in November 2016. Revising the policy has meant revisiting and harmonising practices; during the review, the team considered the following questions, among others:

• What information do we collect?
• How long for?
• What do we do to protect it?
• Where is the data stored? Is it on the institution's servers or on a resource provider's server, and if the latter in which country?
• What control do we have over data held by a resource provider?
• Do all our online systems use HTTPS?
• Which of our services are opt-out and may need to be changed to opt-in? [In Europe the law points to services being offered by default as opt-in, rather than opt-out.]

The revised policy is supported by internal privacy principles that all staff have signed up to. A group of librarians meets quarterly to review anything new that may affect privacy, for example new software or online services that libraries want to subscribe to.

The NYPL team have recognised a need to educate members of the public about what they're giving away when using a particular third-party platform (e-book provider, database, etc.) the library subscribes to - when customers are using a platform, they are under that vendor's terms and conditions.

[For more information, do read Bill Marden's post The path to creating a new privacy policy : NYPL's story on the Choose Privacy Week blog.]

At NYPL borrowing history data is deleted as soon as the person returns the book!

There is sometimes a tension between the data department, which collects information to understand how the library is used or perceived, and privacy issues.

NYPL offers classes, in multiple languages, for residents to learn about privacy. However, the City has now announced that at every branch library there will be a member of staff able to help residents protect their privacy. [An extract is provided below, though the full text of the announcement is worth reading.] The challenge for NYPL and the other library services is now to roll out training to all staff for them to understand privacy principles, and for some of them to be able to answer all types of security and privacy questions.

"The City, in partnership with our libraries, will support residents throughout all five boroughs who have questions about how to use the internet safely and securely. Librarians and other staff — at least one person at every branch — will be trained to respond to patrons’ questions and will incorporate new lessons into their digital literacy trainings.

Librarians are already on the front lines of digital inclusion and they are a trusted source of information in our communities. This collaboration with the Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, Queens Library and the Metropolitan New York Library Council builds on the achievements of the Data Privacy Project."

Extract from Safeguarding Internet privacy in service to the public by Miguel A. Gamiño Jr., NYC Chief Technology Officer