The University of Virginia Library follows the privacy policy of the University of Virginia. This Policy applies to data collected by the Library, described in more detail below. When you use services or content licensed by the Library (including journal and e-book content) but provided by third parties, those are governed by the privacy policies of that provider.
Definition of personal data
Personal data is any information which relates to a person, and from which that person can be identified. Sensitive Data and Highly Sensitive Databoth of which are defined by the University of Virginia Data Protection Policy may include such information as social security number, driver's license number, and passport number, health information, and data regarding racial or ethnic origins.
What data does the Library collect?
- Personal data that carry over from records in other University of Virginia systems: This data can include name, email address, physical address, telephone number, degree, major, gender, birth dates, ethnicity, University role or affiliation, and campus organization involvement.
- Personal data that are provided by you as a patron of this Library: These data include: name, university ID, email address, telephone number, physical address, research topic of interest, University department, and funding sources for transfers between University of Virginia departments.
- Aggregated usage data from Web analytics: This data provides an overall picture of traffic on our website, such as regional information, how long users stay on the site, and the internet address of a requesting device.
How do we use your data?
The University of Virginia Library follows guidelines laid out by the American Library Association and collect and processes personal data according to three principles:
- Lawfulness: We only process and retain your data when we have identified a legal basis for the intended personal data to be used;
- Fairness: We make our best efforts to ensure not to use your data in any unjustified way or in a manner which may have adverse effects on you; and
- Transparency: We make our best efforts to provide detailed information on how the University of Virginia Library uses personal data.
We use your personal data to:
- Fulfill user-requested services and resources; and
- Conduct our internal business processes.
We use aggregated data with no personally identifiable information to:
- Learn how to provide you with a better user experience on our website;
- Monitor system performance;
- Monitor system security;
- Determine the value of our services based on usage; and
- Improve our internal processes and workflows.
What we do not do with your data:
The Library does not sell your data to anyone, and we do not use it to sell anything to you.
Data we share with third parties
Every time you visit a Library website or other online resource, we record details such as your IP address, the website that brought you to our site, the type of browser you use, the pages you view, and the date and time of your visit. No personal data, such as your name, is recorded. These records are collected by our analytics services for analysis.
Some of the websites and services within the University of Virginia Library (such as uvacreate.virginia.edu) are hosted on third-party platforms. Contracts for these services require them to comply with the University of Virginia’s data policies.
Keeping your data up to date
We have a responsibility to ensure that the personal data which we process is accurate and current. Please help us to do this by ensuring that your personal details are kept up to date in the university’s systems.
Data retention
We only retain your personal data for as long as it is essential to the legitimate business interest of the University of Virginia Library. For example, borrower transactions are maintained for a maximum of 90 days (about 3 months) after an item is returned. After that it is purged from the system.
Data security
Your data is secured according to the policies of the University of Virginia and is regularly reviewed by the university’s information security department. Please refer to IRM-003 Data Protection of University Information for more information.
Newsletters and mailing lists
You may receive messages from us because you are subscribed to one of the University of Virginia mailing lists. Apart from those that staff are required to receive; Library mailing lists will always include a link that allows you to unsubscribe from the list.
More information
For more information, please contact lb-scholcomm@virginia.edu.