Privacy Policy

California Digital Library Online Privacy Practices

Effective Date: April 24, 2024
Last updated: April 24, 2024
Version Number: 2.0

The California Digital Library (“CDL”, “we”, or “us”), which is part of the University of California (“UC”), values your privacy. This Privacy Practices Statement (“Statement”) explains how we collect, use, disclose, and process Personal Information (defined below) in connection with websites (“Sites”) operated/owned/managed by CDL, and the related content, platforms, services, products, and other functionalities we offer through those Sites (the “Services”). You can explore our Sites and Services on our homepage, https://cdlib.org/.

You can jump to a particular section by clicking on the heading below:

Personal Information collected from you
How we collect your Personal Information
How we use your Personal Information
Personal Information we share
Retention of Personal Information
How we protect your Personal Information
Your options and control of your Personal Information
Links and third-party Sites
Children’s Personal Information
Updates to our Privacy Practices
International transfer of Personal Information
How to contact us
Statement for EEA, UK, and Switzerland Residents
Cookie Statement

About CDL Services and library materials information

CDL operates a variety of Sites and Services that amplify the impact, scholarship, and resources of the University of California. One of these Services is UC Library Search, which is the primary discovery service for the collections of the UC Libraries. UC Library Search users can find, request and manage materials through their UC Library Search account. Each campus chooses how to manage information associated with user accounts for the users affiliated with their campus. A limited amount of this information is shared with CDL. If you have questions about the use or retention of your information in UC Library Search, contact your campus library or consult the library’s privacy statement.

When users find materials through UC Library Search that are not available directly from their campus library, they can make a request to have those materials sent from another library. If you use this functionality, CDL collects the information about your request in order to facilitate the request’s completion. Information about these requests is anonymized 30 days after each request transaction has been completed (for example, after a book you borrow has been returned).

Personal Information we collect

Some of the information we collect can directly or indirectly identify you. This is called your “Personal Information”. We only collect Personal Information from you that is relevant and necessary for us to provide services to the public or required to meet our obligations under law. The Personal Information we collect may include:

Information you provide to us:

Contact Information (such as first and last name, mailing address, email address, telephone number);
Inquiry and communications information;
Social media communications with CDL;
Geographic information (such as zip code); and
Employment-related information (such as professional or academic affiliation, such as may be learned from your email address);
Other information you choose to provide to us that will be used in accordance with this Statement.

Information collected automatically:

Log data about your interaction with our Sites and online content (such as internet protocol (IP) address, operating system, device type and version, browser type and version, browser id, pages visited, frequency of access, time spent on each page, internet address of the site that directed you to our Site and referring website details). To learn more about how we use cookie data please review the Cookie Statement below.
Analytics data to understand how individuals use our Sites and online content.
Information about your general location, which may be determined through your IP address.
Information about the device you use to access the website, such as unique device settings, operating system, browser, and crash data.

We and our third-party providers may use cookies related technologies to automatically collect this personal information. For more information about these practices and your choices regarding cookies, please see the Cookie Statement section below.

Information collected from third parties:

We may also receive information about you from third parties, which we often combine with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from you. Our third parties may include our business partners, our affiliates, our community partners, our service providers, publicly available sources, including social networks in which you participate. We only collect information from third parties that is relevant and necessary for us to provide services to you and the public or required to meet our obligations under law.

How we collect your Personal Information

We collect Personal Information in a variety of ways. For example, you may provide us your Personal Information when you contact us or send us messages, conduct a search on our Site, subscribe to our mailing lists, newsletters, or other forms of communications, or use some other feature of our Services.

We may link or combine usage or device information from you on our Sites with information we receive from third parties, as well as information we collect automatically through tracking technologies described in the Cookie Statement below. This allows us to provide you with a personalized experience regardless of how you interact with us.

How we use your Personal Information

Depending upon your relationship with CDL, CDL may use your Personal Information, where necessary:

To fulfill or meet the reason the information was provided;
To respond to your requests;
To complete transactions;
To provide our services to you;
To promote our Services;
To invite you to provide your views on our Services, participate in research or attend events;
To perform analytics and understand your preferences;
To provide access where required to our Sites and facilities;
To enforce our agreements, resolve disputes, to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights (and those of others);
Where required by law;
For our own administrative and quality assurance purposes;
For any other purposes you consent to.

We will indicate to you if the provision of certain Personal Information is mandatory. To learn more about how a particular CDL Service uses your Personal Information, refer to the CDL website associated with that Service or use the contact information listed below.

Depending upon your participation in a CDL Site or Service, CDL may share your Personal Information internally within UC’s departments and academic campuses and other UC locations. CDL may also share your Personal Information with third parties. Those third parties may include:

Service Providers: We engage other third-party service providers that perform business or operational services for us or on our behalf. The information we share with our service providers may include contact information, demographic information, transaction information, and information about your communications and related activities.
Collaborators and Community Partners: We coordinate and share Personal Information with UC partners and collaborators to support UC’s public service, education, and research missions.
Public, Regulatory, and Governmental Authorities: We may share Personal Information with governmental authorities that regulate or have jurisdiction over UC.
Legal Obligations and Rights: We may disclose personal information to third parties, such as legal advisors and law enforcement:
- in connection with the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims;
- to comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process;
- to protect our rights and property and the rights and property of others, including to enforce our agreements and policies;
- to detect, suppress, or prevent fraud;
- to protect the health and safety of us and others; or
- as otherwise required by applicable law.
With Your Consent: We may disclose personal information about an individual to certain other third parties or publicly with their consent or direction. For example, with an individual’s consent or direction we may post their testimonial on our Sites or service-related publications.

Any information acquired by CDL through the Sites is subject to the limitations set forth in the Information Practices Act and any other applicable laws. CDL will not distribute or share electronically collected Personal Information (as defined in subdivision (d) of California Government Code Section 11015.5) about users to any third-party without the permission of the user, except in the circumstances set forth in this Statement. CDL will not sell any electronically collected Personal Information to any third-party. Such electronically collected Personal Information is exempt from requests made pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1). To learn more about how a particular CDL service collects your Personal Information, refer to the CDL website associated with that service or use the contact information listed below.

Retention of Personal Information

We keep your Personal Information as long as needed or legally permitted for the purposes for which it was obtained, unless otherwise provided in agreements between you and CDL or as required by law.

How we protect your Personal Information

CDL takes appropriate and reasonable physical, administrative, and technical safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your personal information against loss, unauthorized access, and illegal use or disclosure. Such personal information is stored by CDL in secure locations. CDL employees are trained on procedures for the management of Personal Information, including limitations on the release of information. Access to personal information is limited to those members of CDL’s staff whose work requires such access. CDL’s information management practices conform to the requirements of the Information Practices Act of 1977 (Civil Code Section 1798, et seq.), the Public Records Act (California Government Code Section 6250, et seq.), and California Government Code Section 11015.5.

Your options and control over your Personal Information

You may control your information in the following ways:

Email Communications Preferences. By providing us your email address, you consent to our use of your email address to send you Site and service-related notices. You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link provided in such communications. You may not opt-out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Services, technical and security notices).
Modifying or Deleting Your Information. If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, deleting, or exercising your option of having your Personal Information deleted without reuse or distribution (pursuant to California Government Code section 11015.5), you can contact us directly by sending a written request to the postal or email address set out in the How to contact us section below. We may take a reasonable period to respond. We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances.

Links and Third-Party Sites or Services

Our Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications, including databases and electronic journals that UC has licensed. Except where we post, link to, or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Statement, this Privacy Statement does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any Personal Information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. In the case of licensed databases, journals, and similar content resources, CDL includes a provision protecting user privacy in UC’s contracts with those vendors when possible; however, the practices of those sites are not under our direct control. To learn about the Personal Information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices.

Children’s Personal Information

We do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If an individual is under the age of 13, they should not provide us with any Personal Information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the Personal Information from our systems. If we learn that any Personal Information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that Personal Information.

Updates to our Privacy Practices

We may update this Privacy Statement from time to time. Please review this page periodically to remain informed. Our privacy practices are current as of the Last Updated date identified at the beginning of this Statement. All changes shall be effective from the date identified at the top of the page. Your continued use of the Sites after any changes in this Statement will constitute your acceptance of such change.

International transfer of Personal Information

To fulfill the intended processing purposes for the CDL Services you use, Personal Information of users outside of the United States may be transferred to the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those of your home country. Depending upon your participation in or utilization of CDL Services, your Personal Information may also be transferred to other countries outside of the United States. Refer to the CDL website associated with a particular CDL Service or use the contact information listed below for more information. CDL will undertake appropriate measures to ensure adequate protection of your Personal Information in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or requests in connection with this Privacy Statement or other privacy-related matters, please contact us by using the postal address or email address below:

California Digital Library

University of California

Office of the President

1111 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94607

Email: cdl@www.cdlib.org

European Economic Area (“EEA”), United Kingdom (“UK”), and Switzerland Disclosures

Additional notice for the European Economic Area (“EEA”), United Kingdom (“UK”), and Switzerland.

Controller: The Regents of the University of California, a corporation established under the laws of the Constitution of the State of California, and duly incorporated and organized under the laws of United States of America, having its registered address at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94607, is the “controller” responsible for the processing of personal data in connection with CDL Services. This means that we determine and are responsible for how your personal data is used.

Legal Bases for Processing

UC is the controller of the Personal Information we hold about you in connection with your use of our Services. Depending upon your relationship with UC, UC may use your Personal Information where necessary to perform its obligations under a contract with you, or where necessary to fulfill a request you have made to use or participate in a CDL Service; where required by law, and/or where necessary for the legitimate interests of UC, provided that there is no overriding impact on your interests or rights. In some cases, we may ask you to grant us separate consent to use your Personal Information.

Marketing and Advertising

From time to time, we may contact you with information about our services, including sending you marketing messages and asking for your feedback on our services. Most marketing messages we send will be by email. For some marketing messages, we may use Personal Information we collect about you to help us determine the most relevant marketing information to share with you.

We will only send you such marketing messages if you have given us your consent to do so. You can withdraw your consent at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our marketing emails.

Security and Storage

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, change or damage. We will never send you unsolicited emails or contact you by phone requesting your account ID, password, credit or debit card information or national identification numbers.

International Transfers of your Personal Information

The personal data we collect may be transferred to and stored in countries outside of the jurisdiction you are in where we and our third-party service providers have operations. If you are located in the EEA, United Kingdom, or Switzerland your personal data may be processed outside of those regions, including in the United States.

In the event of such a transfer, we ensure that: (i) the personal data is transferred to countries recognized as offering an equivalent level of protection; or (ii) the transfer is made pursuant to appropriate safeguards that require the recipient to treat the personal data in a manner that is essentially equivalent to that guaranteed in the country you are in. If you are located in the EEA, United Kingdom or Switzerland, these safeguards include entering into agreements that incorporate the standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission and approved by the UK Information Commissioner.

If you wish to inquire further about the safeguards used, please contact us using the details set out in this Privacy Statement.

Your Rights

If you are located in the EEA, or the UK, you have a right to:

Access your Personal Information;
Rectify or correct inaccurate or incomplete Personal Information concerning you;
Move your Personal Information to another controller or processor;
Have your Personal Information erased in certain circumstances;
Restrict the processing of your Personal Information in certain circumstances;
Object to the processing of Personal Information in certain circumstances;
Withdraw your consent to the processing of your Personal Information, should UC ask for your consent for the processing of your Personal Information; and

Know whether your Personal Information is being used for automated decision-making, including profiling. In those cases, UC will give you meaningful information about the logic involved, the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for your data, and the right to request human intervention;

You also have the right to object to any processing based on our legitimate interests where there are grounds relating to your particular situation. There may be compelling reasons for continuing to process your personal data, and we will assess and inform you if that is the case. You can object to marketing activities for any reason. Due to the confidential nature of data processing, we may ask you to confirm your identity when exercising the above rights.

If you wish to exercise one of these rights, please email us at: cdl@www.cdlib.org.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint to your local data protection authority. If you are based in the European Union, information about how to contact your local data protection authority is available here. If you are based in the UK or Switzerland, your local data protection authorities are the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/) and the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home/the-fdpic/contact/address.html).

Where permitted by law, non-personally identifiable information and Personal Information may be automatically collected through the standard operation of CDL services or through the use of “cookies” or “internet tags” and other similar techniques. If you want more information on how to restrict cookies see below.

We and our third-party partners and providers may use cookies to automatically collect certain types of usage information when you visit or interact with our email communications and Services. For example, we may collect log data about your device and its software, such as your IP address, operating system, browser type, date/time of your visit, and other similar information. Our emails may also contain tracking pixels that identify if and when you have opened an email that we have sent you, how many times you have read it and whether you have clicked on any links in that email. We may also collect analytics data or use third-party analytics tools to help us measure usage and activity trends for our online services and better understand the individuals using our services. We also may collect location data, including general geographic location based on IP address.

CDL may use three types of cookies:

Essential Cookies. These are placed on your computer to let our Site function as intended, by allowing the pages to display correctly. Without these, our Site would be prevented from working and would be unusable.
Preferences & Functionality Cookies: These cookies allow our Site to remember how it behaves or looks based on your preferences (e.g., your preferred language or the region you are in). These cookies can also assist you in changing text size, font, and allow you to personalize the pages based on your preferences. These cookies help enhance your experience and disabling these cookies may make our Site less functional; disabling these cookies, however, should not prevent our Site from working.
Third-Party Analytics Cookies: We use third-party cookies for analytics. The use of analytics cookies allows us to improve the Site and enhance user experience. The analytics cookies set on your browser allow us to recognize and count the number of users to the website, see when users are using the Site, and see how users interact with the Site and its different functions. Analytics cookies show us which of the Site pages are most frequently viewed and help us record any difficulties you have with the Site.

We work with third-party partners to provide analytics services. For example, we use Matomo to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our Services, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID, with Matomo to facilitate the service. Matomo allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Services and to tailor our content to you. For information on how Matomo collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Matomo, review Matomo’s website, “Personal data Matomo analytics collects and why” located at https://matomo.org/faq/new-to-piwik/personal-data-matomo-analytics-collects-and-why/.

Interim version of the above changes, to be used until we finish removing Google Analytics (in process):

We work with third-party partners to provide analytics services. For example, some of our sites use Matomo or Google Analytics (“Analytics Providers”) to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our Services, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID, with Analytics Providers to facilitate the service. These Analytics Providers allow us to better understand how our users interact with our Services and to tailor our advertisements and content to you. For information on how Analytics Providers collect and process data, as well as how you can control information sent to Analytics Providers, review Matomo’s website Personal data Matomo analytics collects and why” located at https://matomo.org/faq/new-to-piwik/personal-data-matomo-analytics-collects-and-why/ or Google’s website, “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps.”

How to restrict cookies: If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies; however, doing so may negatively impact your experience using the services, as some features and services may not work properly. You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.