Website Search
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Find information on spaces, staff, and services.
Whenever an item is checked out from and returned to the library, our systems record the history of that transaction, including a reference to the person who checked out the item and which copy of the material was borrowed.
To protect your privacy, starting in January 2025 the Libraries will be anonymizing all loan history data that is older than six months. This process will de-identify the individual associated with the loan transaction. After anonymization, the Libraries will retain a record of the loan for internal collection analysis purposes, but will no longer be able to know which patron borrowed the item at that time.
If you do not want to maintain your full loan history, there is nothing you need to do. Starting in January, if your account has history older than six months, that older information will be anonymized, removing any connection it has to your account.
If you want to maintain your full loan history, then you need to follow the instructions below prior to January 2025.
If you want to maintain your entire loan history, prior to January 2025 you will need to log in to https://loanhistory.library.wisconsin.edu/ and opt in so that your history is preserved for your use.
If you decide later that you do want your loan history anonymized, you can go back to that URL and opt out.
If you have opted in to maintain your full loan history, you can view your loan history from within your Libraries Account.
NOTE that any accounts that do not opt-in by January 2025 will have their loan history reduced to the prior six months, and loan history older than that will be anonymized and not recoverable.
Once you opt in, you can export your loan history by using the Download link in the loan history service. This will download a text .csv file you can store offline or use in your personal applications.
Active loans for physical materials that are still in the possession of library patrons are not affected by this policy. Any materials that have been checked out and not yet returned will still show up in your library account and will appear in your loan history once they are returned to the library.
If you opt in to have us retain your full history, it will contain the items title, author, loan date and other publication information. The loan history will not have a record of any digitization requests – only physical material loans.
Opting in to retention of your entire history means that the Libraries will maintain a record of what you have borrowed. This increases the risk of exposure of this data to a security breach. The Libraries take our cybersecurity role very seriously in order to limit that risk, but improper and illegal access is always a risk no matter how securely a system is protected.
Your loan history is protected under Wisconsin state statute §§ 43.30 and the Libraries are not permitted to share your information with anyone besides you or your legal guardian. However, under rare circumstances, a library may be compelled by court order to release your circulation data to law enforcement as part of a criminal investigation.
While the libraries may use anonymized circulation data when making collections decisions, we do not utilize the individual personal circulation data in any way, unless requested by the patron or if needed to resolve a specific internal circulation question.
We do not share personal circulation history, although this service will allow you to see your own loan history. Wisconsin state statute §§ 43.30 protects this information such that we would not disclose this information to anyone else except through a court order.
Patrons are strongly encouraged to download a copy of their loan history before their relationship with the university ends.
When a patron loses their NetID access, they will no longer be able to access their loan history. Furthermore, after a patron leaves the UW, their record is purged from library systems and their loan history will be purged and not recoverable.