[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Making patron data invisible for other libraries in consortium?

[Linda Jansova]

Dan, thanks a lot for your clarification! I has been very helpful for us!

Linda

On 10/04/2014 06:56 PM, Dan Scott wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 9:08 AM, skolkova at upcmail.cz 
> <mailto:skolkova at upcmail.cz> <skolkova at chello.cz 
> <mailto:skolkova at chello.cz>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     Here in the Czech Republic we are just considering a pilot project
>     for a simple consortium of two libraries (so far, in our country
>     there are only single plantings). However, the two libraries would
>     be two separate legal entities and we need to ensure patron data
>     privacy.
>
>     At this moment it seems that the easiest way would be to make sure
>     that the two libraries would not share their patrons (meaning that
>     one library would not see the other library's patrons). Can
>     Evergreen cope with this? And if so, how exactly?
>
>     Or is it necessary to make such legal arrangements that would
>     enable the two libraries share data about their patrons?
>
>     Thank you in advance for sharing any ideas or links pointing to
>     some hints regarding this issue!
>
>
> There are some settings for "patron opt-in" in Evergreen that prevent 
> easy access to patron info from other libraries. The idea is that 
> staff at library 1 should not be able to search for a patron at 
> library 2 by their name or other attributes until that patron presents 
> their barcode at library 1 and agrees to share their information with 
> library 1. We use this approach in our consortium to minimize 
> unnecessary exposure of patron data at different branches.
>
> There doesn't appear to be anything about the patron opt-in settings 
> in the official docs, but 
> http://docs.sitka.bclibraries.ca/Sitka/current/html/searching-patrons.html 
> has a screenshot showing what staff see when a user from a different 
> library presents their card at a library to which they have not yet 
> opted in to sharing their information.
>
> That said, anyone with the ability to create reports can easily create 
> a report which extracts all user information for all libraries, and 
> there are some points where information leakage can occur (for 
> example, I think you can see borrowers from other libraries on an 
> item's circulation history). So it's not a completely airtight 
> solution by any means, but it is suitable for some setups.
>
> Ultimately, however, if you don't want to share patron info at all 
> across libraries, the only way to do that is to have separate 
> Evergreen instances.

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