Public-records requesting my own library records | Dorothea Salo

Hi, all. Been a while since I posted anything here; I doubt I need to explain why. I do, however, want to announce the existence of a dataset and give a little background on it. I will have much more to say about it, here and in planned publications, but let’s start with the basics.

The dataset can be found on OSF, and the README.txt file contains the text of my public-records request and details about the files in the dataset. I won’t repeat those here!

Instead, I want to talk about how this came about, because some folks who are not me deserve credit.

I teach a mixed grad/undergrad course in information security and privacy (LIS 510) aimed primarily at non-technical layfolk. The big semesterlong group project for this class asks students to investigate various aspects of the privacy/security situation surrounding their choice of campus-related data. In spring 2021, two groups of graduate students in the LIS master’s program investigated library circulation data.

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