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SUMMARY

SCOPE
This guideline deals with user authentication, profiling and personalisation including smartcards and swipe cards, policies in relation to the Internet in public libraries, charging and payment facilities, and interactive fora.

POLICY ISSUES
Sophisticated forms of personalised services will soon be available in public libraries. These are likely to be accessed by means of swipe cards which can give people access to their own personalised files on computers in libraries.

Libraries must be aware of the coming changes to systems of authentication and the possibility of this process either becoming more complex and expensive or being taken out of their control. They must also address the ethical issues in terms of protection of privacy, perhaps through a code of conduct. If these issues can be dealt with then there is the potential for public libraries to move into a whole new phase of development.

GOOD PRACTICE GUIDELINES
Libraries have always provided personalised services for their users, such as current awareness services. Changes in technology have enabled services like self-service issue and remote access to catalogues to be introduced, and will give rise to more sophisticated personalised services such as content management for library users who need them. Many of these services are connected with the use of the Internet.

The public are beginning to get used to the personalised electronic services provided by banks etc. which enable them to access some services from their own homes, and will expect the same sort of service from public libraries. The main innovations are:

• Recommender systems
• Portals
• Payment by means of smartcards

All these developments are dependent on computers having some means of recognising an individual. There are various ways in which this can be achieved but all depend on some form of user authentication being carried out. Authentication is time consuming and many forms of it are far from foolproof. They do not guarantee the privacy or identity of the user and may involve various types of minor problem, e.g. loss of passwords etc. The use of smartcards will resolve many of these difficulties but their use may result in the loss of libraries' power to authenticate their own users as the process of authentication may be handed over to the private sector or carried out by another local authority department.

FUTURE AGENDA
Personalisation will potentially overcome the problems of information overload, lack of time, and increased mobility by targeting information to users' individual needs. Personalisation will change libraries from being content and subject focused to being user focused. The potential benefits for lifelong learning (targeting users' learning requirements), social inclusion (targeting the needs of user groups e.g. disabled people), digital literacy (enabling levels of access suited to the user's capabilities), and community building (tailoring information to the needs of community groups with similar interests and enabling users to interact with each other) are great.

Home | Personalisation (Summary)
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