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This article discusses the protection of user privacy in the age of digital libraries in the U.S. The topic of privacy regulations is complex at best, but research yielded three key insights. First, there is a host of legislation at both the federal and state level that applies to the users' privacy issues. At the federal level, the Privacy Act of 1974, Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and Children's On-line Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) are of interest to libraries. The Privacy Act of 1974 was passed in order to control the federal government's collection, use, and dissemination of sensitive personal information. FERPA is a law that requires educational institutions to protect students' privacy with regard to educational records, while COPPA prohibits Web sites from collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 without the consent of their parents. However, research suggested that this legislation is most pertinent to libraries. Second, the Library Bill of Rights and the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics both have strong statements regarding libraries and a librarian's responsibilities to user privacy. The Library Bill of Rights implies that privacy needs to be protected by libraries. This is because users lose their freedom of inquiry if their privacy is not guaranteed. Furthermore, the ALA Code of Ethics makes a more direct statement regarding libraries and privacy: We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted. Third, beyond the legislative realm, libraries need to pay attention to privacy issues because they are part of the greater landscape of the Internet, and most commercial Web sites have some sort of privacy statement and policies.

Comments on a meeting of the board of trustees of the Kitsap Regional Library System in Bremerton, Washington. Expectation of the author that the meeting would be a venue for heated debate about the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA); Opinion that CIPA, which mandates that federally funded libraries implement Internet filters for public access computers, amounts to censorship; Events of the meeting, at which attendees were polite and generally supportive of the library's position on CIPA.

This section reports on several library products in the U.S. as of May 2004. Sirsi Corp. announced the launch of an original certification program for the National Information Standards Organization Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP). This product will enable third-party vendors to ensure that their NCIP-compliant products integrate with Sirsi systems. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced the completion of an independent audit of IEEE Xplore usage statistics. The controls-based audit, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, reviewed the accuracy of the count of portable document-format documents downloaded from IEEE Xplore. In a legislative session in 2004, the Utah state legislature amended Utah's existing Online Access of Public Libraries Act to make Utah libraries' state funding contingent on their installation of filters that block certain images on all public access computers. Those filters may be disabled, at the request of a library patron who is not a minor, to allow access for research or other lawful purposes. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, announced that 51 members of the Oberlin Group of Liberal Arts College Libraries have become institutional members of the Public Library of Science.