[Eril-l] virtual reference and confidentiality, privacy and "creepy" factor

[Sherise S Kimura]

Melissa,

We have an embedded libraryh3lp widget in our EDS platform as well. I just
tested this, and I'm not seeing search terms in the session URLs in the
live chat window or chat history, under "referrer."

We're using the latest version:  https://libraryh3lp.com/webclient/client

I believe search terms may be included in URLs from some library catalogs,
but we have not added the libraryh3lp widget in our catalog.

Sherise

--

Sherise Kimura
Electronic Resources Librarian
Gleeson Library/Geschke Center
University of San Francisco
kimura at usfca.edu
(415) 422-5379



On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 11:39 AM, Melissa Belvadi <mbelvadi at upei.ca> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We use libraryh3lp as our virtual reference service platform.
> A feature of it is that it provides to the "operator" the URL that the
> user was on at the point that they started the chat session. As it happens,
> if you put that chat box within, for instance, the EBSCOhost or EDS
> platforms, that URL has encoded in it the user's last search strategy.
>
> I had a patron use that chat box to ask a question about our hours. I
> happened to notice the URL and could tell that they were surely getting
> unsatisfactory results, so after answering their question, I noted that I
> could see their keywords and perhaps could offer some help in creating a
> better search. This particular patron was happy for the help, but when I
> told my colleagues about this interaction, there was quite a discussion
> about the "creepiness" aspect and that led to more discussion about our
> lack of an explicit privacy policy.  In this discussion, our head of
> instruction noted that when she shows classes the chat service, she often
> gets a question to the effect "can you tell who I am?" which of course has
> a difficult answer involving IP address traceability (but which she does
> NOT go into but just tells them basically "no").
>
> So I am wondering if any of you could share your thoughts: if you have any
> kind of formal policies or web page/documents relating confidentiality in
> virtual reference service, explaining what their expectations of privacy
> should be, what you can and can't see about them when they use it, or
> anything else you can think of that relates to this.
>
> Thanks for sharing!
>
> Melissa Belvadi
> Collections Librarian
> University of Prince Edward Island
> mbelvadi at upei.ca 902-566-0581 <(902)%20566-0581>
> my public calendar
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