My former place of work (FPOW) used to have Social Security numbers as college ID numbers, which were written on book checkout cards. About ten years ago, we switched to an ILS and began generating in-house ID numbers for students.
This transition worked well, and when we conducted our next inventory we removed every checkout card from all of the books. There had been growing concerns about ID theft, and completing this task eased our minds.
Has your institution used Social Security numbers as library identifiers? Do you have checkout cards in your books that could lead to ID theft? If so, do you have a plan to remove them?
It is best to be proactive about this sort of thing. You don’t want to wake up to the type of news story that the University of Toledo did this morning.
found via LISNews
