LDH Consulting Services helps libraries and vendors navigate the intersection of library data and privacy.
Why work with LDH Consulting Services?
Library data is a valuable asset to libraries and vendors. Data enables decision-makers to provide quality programs, services, and collections to their patrons. The library that uses data effectively demonstrates their value to the greater community, be it at a higher education institution or to the taxpayers in the library’s service area. Without data, library administrators and other decision-makers lose a powerful tool in securing additional resources and funding, and potentially the future of their library.
Library data is also a vulnerable asset that creates risk for libraries, vendors, and patrons. Libraries are champions of patron privacy, and patrons expect libraries to protect their data. However, if patron data is compromised, the patron trust in the library is broken. The wide range of local and vendor systems and workflows that collect, store, and report on patron data creates a high risk of that data being breached, leaked, or otherwise improperly used.
LDH Consulting Services strives to create a sustainable balance between the operational need for data and the need to protect library data privacy. Instead of a “all or none” approach, LDH focuses on ways libraries and vendors can work with data using privacy-informed practices. These practices give libraries and vendors the tools they need to work with patron data while respecting patron privacy.