CIPR was commissioned in 2011 by the American Library Association‘s Office for Intellectual Freedom to conduct a survey measuring librarians’ views on privacy rights and protecting library users’ privacy. The study, which builds on an 2008  American Library Association survey assessing librarians’ attitudes about privacy, provides important data that will help privacy advocates evaluate the state of privacy in the United States and libraries’ role in protecting library users’ privacy.

Overall, the results indicated a high level of concern among respondents over information privacy and a desire to control access and use of personal information, but also reflects some shifts in privacy attitudes compared to the 2008 study. Highlights of the survey results are available here, and the full study has been published in Library Quarterly.