The St. Charles City-County Library Privacy Statement
Last Updated: April 20, 2022
The St. Charles City-County Library is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy statement explains the information we collect from you and why.
The Library may collect some personally identifiable information about you when you visit our website, register for a program, or apply for a library card unless you choose not to provide that information. However, if you choose not to provide us with this information, it will limit the features and services we can offer, such as borrowing materials or accessing digital resources. Any information collected will only be used to deliver or improve library services.
By using our website or visiting a Library location, you agree with this statement. You also agree to let us communicate with you through both your email address and your postal address. Third-party services provided through the Library may have other policies that affect your privacy. The St. Charles City-County Library is not responsible for the privacy practices of these services and we encourage you to review the privacy statements and policies of all sites you visit.
This privacy statement may change from time to time and such changes will be posted on our website. We encourage you to check back periodically for updates.
Email Addresses and Web Forms
Some of the services on this website allow you to send us a secure email, text or chat message. We will use your information for the purpose described at the point of collection, such as to send information or provide library services to you, update your record, or respond to questions or comments. Any credit card information you provide for fines, fees, or services is secure and only used for that intended purpose.
Information Collected Automatically
The St. Charles City-County Library uses cookies to provide a customized user experience on our site. A cookie is a small file that a website transfers to your computer to allow your browser to remember information about your last session on that site. Your computer only shares information in the cookie with the specific website that provided it, and no other website can request that information. The Library also uses third-party analytics services (like Google Analytics) to gather this information for analysis.
The Library collects and temporarily stores certain information about your visit to help us to better align our content and website design with your needs. This information does not identify you personally. The information collected includes:
- The Internet domain used to access our website
- Your computer's IP address
- The date and time you accessed our site
- The operating system of your computer
- The browser you're using to access our site
- The Universal Resource Locators (URLs) of the pages you visit on our website
- The address of the website you came from, if you clicked a link to visit our site
We may share this information internally with St. Charles City-County Library employees or third-party vendors as needed. This information is only used to improve the website and enhance our visitors’ experience. This collected information is not connected to your personal information or identity.
Customer Circulation Records
Customer circulation records are collected and tracked electronically. The Library maintains information provided by our customers when they register for a library card. When items are checked out, they are tied to the customer’s record in our circulation system.
Security
The St. Charles City-County Library takes the security of your personal information very seriously. We take many precautions to ensure that the information we collect is secure and inaccessible by anyone outside of our organization. These precautions include advanced access controls to limit access to that information to only internal personnel who require access to that information. We also use numerous security technologies to protect all data stored on our servers and related systems. Our security measures are regularly upgraded and tested to ensure they are effective.
We take the following specific steps to protect your information:
- Use internal access controls so only limited personnel have access to your information
- Anyone with access to user information is trained on all relevant security and compliance policies
- Servers that store visitor information are regularly backed up to protect against loss
- All information is secured through modem security technologies like Secure Socket layer (SSL), encryption, firewalls, and secure passwords
All access safeguards described above are in place to prevent unauthorized access by outsiders to information stored on or transmitted by our systems.
Third-Party Websites and Applications
The St. Charles City-County Library uses commenting and social media plug-ins and third-party websites. We use those third-party services to interact with visitors and to build our community on social media. We also use these third-party services to measure the number of visitors to our website, to interact with visitors on the site, and to make our website more useful to visitors.
In such cases, the third-party application may request an email address, username, password, internet protocol (IP) address, and geographic location for account registration or sign-in purposes. The Library does not use third-party websites or services to collect personal information from individuals. Any personal information collected by a third-party website will not be stored or transmitted by the Library. Additionally, the Library has no control over or access to specific login information or any other sensitive personal information provided to third-party websites.
Information you give to third-party websites and applications (including login information such as user name and password) featured on our site is subject to the privacy policies and terms of use of those sites. As such, we are unable to access and change this information on your behalf. We encourage all users to become familiar with the policies of all sites they visit.
Choice, Access, and Redress
You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address or phone number given on our website:
- Ask for a list of personal information we have about you, if any
- Request a change or correction of your personal information
- Request that we avoid collecting anything in the future (opt-out)
If you do not wish to have cookies stored on your machine, you have the option to turn cookies off in your browser. However, keep in mind that turning off cookies may impact how this website functions. Disabling browser cookies will also impact how other websites you visit store browser cookies as well.
Whenever we collect any sensitive information (such as library card numbers or credit card information), the information is encrypted and securely transmitted. You are able to confirm this by looking for the ‘lock’ icon in the browser address bar, and also confirm that the URL link starts with ‘https'.
If you have concerns at any point about how this privacy statement is being applied, please contact us immediately via email or telephone or by visiting one of our branches.