Protecting your privacy: Libraries to limit loan history to six months, with option for longer retention
Note that this article has been edited to update the timeline from January 2025 to March 2025.
Beginning in March 2025, the libraries will retain only the previous six months of an individual’s loan history. Six months after the return of a physical item to the library, information about the loan will be anonymized to protect patron privacy.
Patrons who want to retain this information beyond six months will need to opt-in at https://loanhistory.library.wisconsin.edu/. Patrons with current loan history will need to opt-in by March 2025 to retain information prior to September 2024 when our rolling six-month window will begin.
If a patron does not opt-in, loan history beyond the six-month period will be anonymized and not recoverable. There will be no way for staff to retrieve this information.
If you opt in to retain your full loan history, you will also be able to download that history at the same URL.
More information about your loan history is available on the Library Website, including how the opt in service works and the risks associated with opting in.
Please contact us through Ask a Librarian if you have questions.
Your full loan history will include a list of materials that you have checked out and returned to the library since May 2015. The loan history will not have a record of any digitization requests – only physical material loans. Some Interlibrary Loan materials will be included in the list, such as titles borrowed from another Universities of Wisconsin campus.
The data will include basic publication information such as the title, author, and date of a book and the loan date.
Patrons may opt in beginning in September 2024. Patrons need to opt in before March 2025 in order to retain the entire loan history which can go back as far as May of 2015. If patrons opt in after March 2025, they will only retain their history for the six-month rolling window from the point that they opt in.