Privacy Statement for the Library's Website

About Privacy

Thank you for visiting the Sonoma County Library’s web site. We are committed to preserving the privacy of our visitors and patrons. We do not collect personal information about you just because you visit this site.

We will not share any information you give us with anyone unless required by court order. We do not collect or sell your information for commercial purposes. Your patron information is confidential.

In order to improve the usefulness of our site for visitors, we automatically collect and maintain statistical information about your visit to our web site https://sonomalibrary.org/ and our library catalog. This information includes the IP address of the visitor, the computer and web browser type, the pages used, the time and date, and any errors that occurred. We collect this information in our internal web site logs and in the Google Analytics external logging service. This information is used for internal reporting purposes. No attempt is made to identify individual users unless illegal behavior is suspected. We monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information or otherwise cause damage to our web service. These security measures ensure that the web site remains available to use for your library needs.

Your Library card number and account

Some of the databases available to you from our web site will require the bar code number from your Sonoma County Library card for verification purposes. These database vendors do not have access to our records.

You can log onto your account on our catalog using the My Account tab. To prevent others from viewing your account, do not share your library card number.

Your account in the system contains information about current hold requests, items checked out, and items overdue. Once items are returned, this information is removed from your account. The library does not keep a history of previous books checked out on your account.

Searches in this web site are not tracked against your library account. All web site usage information is logged separately from your library account information.

If you create an account in one of our databases, for example to receive email updates of new magazine articles, the account has no connection with your Library card number and account. Please review the privacy policy of the database site you visit.

Other Sites

This site contains links to other sites. The Library is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of other sites.

If you would like your email address removed from your patron record, you may contact us.

Forms and messages

If you include your email address or other personal information when contacting us through a feedback or question form on this site, we use this information only to answer your question or for other Library purposes such as investigating system problems. We do not share the information with outside parties.

Cookies

The Sonoma County Library does not track individual users of its regular public website at https://sonomalibrary.org/. We use Google Analytics for statistics on overall use of the site. Google Analytics may set its own cookies on your computer. For information on Google's cookie policies and privacy policies, please see Google Analytics Privacy. You may prevent Google Analytics cookies and tracking on all sites by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out tool.

The library catalog website, at https://find.sonomalibrary.org, and several of our databases may use cookies to keep track of your current session and keep you logged on to the service or database you are using. These cookies are temporary and are not stored on your computer after your web browser is closed.

Online payments

If you choose to use our Pay Online service to pay fines or fees with a credit or debit card, we will need both your library account information and your credit card information. Your library account information is used only by us, to credit your payment to the correct library patron account. We provide your credit/debit card information to a payment processing service. The service uses this information only to process your payment. We do not provide your library account information to the service.

Children's Information

We do not collect any information about children other than the information needed for a library card.

Your email address

You may give us your email address for the purpose of notifying you about your library account. This information is not used in any other way, and you can ask to remove your email address from our records at any time.

Web site contact

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or the web site you can contact us.