The Board of Trustees and staff of the Lewisboro Library seek to protect the privacy and confidentiality of all who use the Library.
We are committed to protecting the personally identifiable information you give us and strive to collect and use only that information necessary to provide or improve library service. You have the right to access your information on our web site or in person, but will be required to provide proof of your identity. We will not disclose your personal information to others except upon your consent or request, or unless legally required to do so.
New York State law (CPLR §4509) mandates the confidentiality of all records containing personally identifiable information relating to an individual’s use of any library and its materials, facilities, and services. Confidentiality includes, but is not limited to, circulation of library books, periodicals and other materials, database searches, interlibrary loan transactions, reference requests, and use of audiovisual materials. We will not sell or lease confidential information to outside parties and will not disclose information unless required to do so by law. Library records containing personally identifiable information will not be made available to anyone except “pursuant to subpoena, court order or where otherwise required by statute.” We authorize only the Library Director (or her/his designee) to receive or comply with requests from law enforcement officers. We will confer with legal counsel before determining the proper response.
Information We Collect
The types of personal information we collect are:
- Name
- Address
- Telephone numbers
- Email address
- Year of birth
- Library barcode number
- Materials currently checked out or requested, including interlibrary loans
- Overdue materials (until returned)
- Unpaid fines (until paid)
In order to protect your personal information, our automated consortium, Westlynx, employs the following policies and procedures to safeguard the personal identifiable information of the patrons of the member libraries in internal operations.
Circulation Records
Once a book is returned and charges (if any) are resolved, the link between a patron barcode and the title is excised after 30 days. WLS allows patrons to exercise the option to retain their checkout and holds history if desired. Patrons can choose to retain their checkout history by clicking the “Search Catalog” button located on the home screen of the Lewisboro Library website and then “Your Account” in the Lewisboro Library catalog’s main menu. Once the library card and PIN have been validated, patrons can choose “Reading History” and then “Start Recording My Reading History.”
Back–ups
The Westlynx system is fully backed up on a nightly basis. The entire infrastructure is virtualized therefore incremental snapshots are created on a daily basis. Every week those incremental snapshots create a full backup of each server and then overrides an older version of the snapshot. The backups are hosted on a cloud based service that is off-premise.
Internet protocols
1) At the consortium site: All caches or logs of a nature that captures specific Internet site use are cleared at a minimum on a weekly basis.
2) In libraries: WLS IT requires that all public Internet workstations be shut down nightly or rebooted in the morning. Software installed on those machines will delete any cache of sites visited by patrons. It also removes any viruses that may have attacked that machine during the day.
Links to Other Sites
Our website contains links to other sites not maintained by the Library.
The Westchester Library System purchases access to services such as online databases and electronic books from third-party vendors for use by library patrons. These third-party vendors are reputable partners and may collect personal information in order to provide certain services to its users. The information you submit to the Library may be provided to those third parties so that they can assist us in providing certain services (such as the delivery of eBooks for use on Kindles, or via Kindle apps, through Amazon). You can access a list of these services and the personal data they may retain here: https://www.westchesterlibraries.org/about-wls/patron-privacy/
We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any other sites you may visit. We encourage you to become familiar with privacy practices and be mindful of privacy.
You have the option of providing us with your email address for the purpose of notifying you about your library account/library activities. You may request that we remove your email address from your account or from Constant Contact at any time.
The Lewisboro Library and the Westchester Library System use Gmail, a product of Google, Inc. for traditional email functions and as a backbone for other library business, such as processing and tracking interlibrary loan requests.
The Lewisboro Library utilizes Google Analytics on our website. The Library distributes our weekly email newsletter and special announcements through services provided by Constant Contact. Microsoft Windows 10 is the operating system on our public computers.
These businesses have their own privacy policies available at:
https://policies.google.com/privacy for Google services including Google Analytics and Gmail
https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us for Microsoft.
https://constantcontact.com/legal/about-constant-contact-faq for Constant Contact
Although the Library’s staff takes all reasonable precautions to guard your privacy, you should be aware that their control over Constant Contact, Google and Microsoft is limited.
Cookies
We use browser cookies to ease your access to our catalog and databases. Cookies are small data files that our computer server sends to your Web browser that are then stored on your hard drive.
These cookies do not collect, store, or maintain your personally identifiable information. You do not have to accept these cookies in order to visit or use our website and resources, and you can choose to refuse cookies or delete cookies from your hard drive.
When you access our catalog and databases from home, we will require the barcode number from your library card and your PIN for authentication purposes. Providers of licensed databases do not have access to our records containing personal information. Our contract with vendors stipulates that any information that could be linked to your barcode is to be discarded as soon as you log off.
Approved by the Lewisboro Library Board of Trustees on March 11, 2020
Revised & approved June 12, 2024
