As a teenager, I had a part time job at my local public library, shelving books and working at the front desk. The librarian was an absolute privacy freak. A couple of anecdotes:

Once I commented on a patron's choice of books, and he went into a fifteen minute tirade about his topic of interest, an elaborate Communist plot against the US. The librarian pulled me aside afterwards, and said: "You're not even supposed to notice what they're checking out. It's none of your business. Hope you learned your lesson." To this day, it kind of bugs me when the library workers comment on my kids' book choices when they check out, even if it's harmless chatting.

This was during a time when an organization called Moral Majority was reportedly going to libraries and asking for circulation records, pertaining to some book that they considered to be offensive. Some people showed up while I was on desk duty, and asked to see the records. I invited them to sit in the librarian's office while I fetched her from the stacks. She went in, closed the door, and you could hear her hollering from down the street, then the visitors quietly left.

My other duty at the library was sending out the overdue notices, so I had access to the circulation records. They were kept in a bizarre way, and I filled out the "overdue" postcards by hand. We disposed of records after they were no longer needed for that process. After the incident, I commented to the librarian that I didn't think it was even possible for someone to figure out who was borrowing what books without a pretty elaborate effort. She said: "Now you understand."

Her career lasted well into the computer age, and she was always opposed to electronic circulation systems.

The experience influenced my thinking fairly deeply.

As a side note, libraries can (still) serve as a physical access point for bringing together people who need certain kinds of help, and staff / volunteers who can help them. When I worked at the library, things like the civil service exam study guides were in heavy circulation. Today, at the same library, there are several computers, and a bunch of volunteers who can help people use them. My mom maintains them.

That sensitivity to privacy seems to be a US phenomenon? At least, I never noticed that in Germany.

I work as a developer at a German library and privacy is taken very seriously here. We're not allowed to store full IP addresses in the logs (they have to be truncated to /16). Google Analytics is out of the question (we have to use self-hosted Piwik), as are direct social media buttons, we have to use wrappers that only load the JS after a user clicks on it, and even that has to be approved by the "Datenschutzbeauftragter". Even external links have to be explicitly marked as such so users know when their Referral information is leaked to other websites.

That mostly is just implementing EU law. Good to know that it is taken seriously. Maybe others are more relaxed about it.

You need to understand that privacy in the US is on a whole different level as compared to privacy laws in Germany.

What appears to be an admirable effort by librarians to Americans would still be a gross violation of privacy over here.

For instance, did you know that Apache logfiles are technically forbidden over here because they contain IP adresses which can be traced back to individual users?

Now, during my Student years in the early 2000s, I jobbed in a large University library in southern Germany. Systems were compartilized and there were organizational firewalls between departments so people without a need to know had no way to determine circulation records of or by anyone.

Same here. When just checking out books it's usually OK (although even then I prefer self-checkout machines), but when asking for help when searching for something, or requesting that they buy something, I've never met a librarian that just said "ok". They feel compelled to make some disparaging remark about my interests. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. "You're not even supposed to notice" patrons' interests? I wish.

Unfortunately, librarians are a rare breed. The typical mentality in the US is to keep records of everything, and try to legislate the use of those records (e.g., discrimination laws), which is hopeless.

I haven't heard of the Moral Majority since Bloom County ;-)