Interview with Linda Wilson, City Librarian, Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library (CA)
Minow: Tell us about the latest MySpace incident in your library.
Wilson: A Monterey Park Police Officer came to me and said that they had a report of a 14-year-old runaway. She had a fight with her mother and took off. They were sure that she was still around, and her friends said that she would come to the library to check MySpace. The officer wanted us to put a block on her library card so that she could not sign-up to use the computers and would come to the Reference Desk to find out why she could not sign-up.
Minow: What did they want the library to do then?
Wilson: They wanted us to call the Police when she did this. The Police were not asking to look at her library card record. Could we have done this without a court order? Should we have required a court order?
Minow: California law only protects library registration and circulation records. Federal law protects electronic communications, but as you say, the police were not asking to look at her records. What happened?
Wilson: We do have some quick lookup Internet computers that do not require a library card so she could have been using them to access her MySpace account. I believe, though, that either the girl came home or the Police found her elsewhere as we did not have to get involved further. I still am curious, though, about how we should have handled it if it came to putting a block on her library card.
Minow: I can blog this and ask for reader comments if you like.
Wilson: That would be great. Thanks.