PROCEDURE

If law enforcement, or other government officials, approach you for patron information or records:

1. Determine if the official has a search warrant. No other type of written document or verbal request, including a subpoena, is sufficient to compel disclosure of private information. If the official has a search warrant, allow him or her to proceed with the search. Explain that you must contact the Director of Libraries immediately unless the search warrant forbids you to do so.

2. If the official does not have a search warrant, explain that you can't provide the information and immediately refer them to Cliff Haka, the Director of Libraries. Cliff can be reached in the office at (517) 355-2341. If he is not in the office, call his cell phone number, (517) 927-5338.

3. If you cannot reach Cliff, call the following numbers, in order, until you reach someone:

David Gift, Vice Provost for Libraries, Computing and Technology, (517) 353-0722, cell (517) 290-1149.
Ellen Armentrout or Kristine Zayko, Office of the General Counsel, (517) 353-3530

Ellen Armentrout, (517) 337-4845
Kristine Zayko, (517) 339-9351.

POLICY

The Director of Libraries is responsible for responding to law enforcement requests for information or records. Protecting user privacy and confidentiality is integral to the mission of the MSU Libraries. The right to privacy is the right to conduct library research without having the subject of that research examined by others. Confidentiality is maintained when the Libraries keep personally identifiable information private on the user's behalf. Privacy and confidentiality are protected by the Library Privacy Act, Michigan Compiled Laws 397.601-606, Act 455, of 1982. In October 2001, following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the USA PATRIOT ACT became law. The USA PATROIT ACT expanded the authority of the FBI and law enforcement to gain access to confidential records, including library records. According to a survey conducted by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, law enforcement officials visited 545 libraries to ask for library records in the year after the attacks, a figure that is probably low because the USA PATRIOT ACT can restrict disclosure that a search warrant has been served (Library Journal, Feb. 15, 2003, p. 16).

This document was written to provide you with a protocol to follow should your unit receive a request for library records from a law enforcement officer or another government official. The MSU Libraries will cooperate with all legal requests for information. However, the Libraries must make sure that we inform the proper people concerning any request to ensure that we are complying with the law. The laws governing privacy and law enforcement investigations can be complex. To ensure consistent, thorough, and lawful responses, we must handle such requests centrally.

Additional Information
Provost Lou Anna K. Simon's memo regarding Law Enforcement and Government Requests for Information or Records.
 
 

Michigan State University Libraries