Privacy and Open Access Content

Abstract While librarians have frequently demonstrated a strong commitment to their patrons’ privacy with physical resources, readers and researchers now experience insecure connections and third-party tracking when accessing library resources. Additionally, when libraries pay for content, that money is often going to companies that also collect personal information, aggregate data from tracking networks and sell data to law enforcement agencies. While some ways of shifting to an Open Access (OA) publication model could improve this, significant challenges remain. Currently, some of the same corporations that sell resources to libraries are also among the biggest OA service providers, and OA may also limit librarians’ position for advocacy.