🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Apr6.201903.18335@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
 cs4cb3ii@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Group I) writes:

>In article <1992Apr5.205935.29334@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu
> (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>>If your library is like most, it does not keep a record of the books
>>you check out.

>Sure it does.  Every library I have ever been to has eventually come after
>me for my overdue books.  Whether or not this information can be
>used, or in what manner it can be used is controlled, but libraries do
>at some time, know what books you have.

I've worked for a library computer system vendor, and a library system.
One of the most sacred tenents of the systems provided was that of
privacy.  There were capabilities built into the systems that would
allow the libraries to save, in a log form, all past transactions.
I've been involved with about 30 library systems;
NOT A SINGLE ONE EVEN KEPT RECORDS OF PATRON BORROWING once an item
was returned.

>I would also be willing to bet
>that most computerized library systems keep track of your old
>records, at least until that particular database record is 'overwritten'
>by a new borrower/book record.  Perhaps someone with more knowledge
>of computerization in library book checkout could write a comp.risks
>article. (?)

Negative.  In the systems I've been in contact with, once an item is
returned, the link between patron and item is broken, and, short of
taking a disk drive out of service and exploring it sector by sector,
there is no way to 'back-track' a patrons' borrowing history.

--
|   Michael G. Hart                   mhart@blackjack.dt.navy.mil    |
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|     You think _I_ speak for the government or the navy?  HAH!      |
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