Week14 Reading Note

The issue of patrons' privacy has been buzzed for a long time. Collecting data about patrons' information seeking process is a controversial issue. From the view of data-mining, it is essential and vital to develop an effective and efficient method for the future information retrieval system. Yet, being watched, monitored, and collected by third party is not a pleasant experience for patrons. As Hammer sates, "respect for patron privacy is a fundamental value long recognized in the library code of ethics, and in federal and local legislation and case law". Moreover, after the September 11 attacks, the paradigm about an individual's privacy has been infringed without any second thought for the national security. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, released "Total Information Awareness" to track terrorists by monitoring individual's information access. Personally, I think that this is very dangerous attempts. If all information is aggregated into one system, it is very vulnerable to be invaded by hackers who have a bad intention.