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On Tuesday, December 15, the House voted on SB611 - Amendments to the Library Privacy Act. We broke the vote tally board (quite literally) as the vote for SB611 was underway. It took about ½ hour to fix and then SB611 was up again. We ended with 107 Aye votes to 2 Nay votes. The bill was concurred on the Senate agenda on Wednesday, December 16 and now heads to the Governor’s desk for signature. 

This legislation removes obstacles and legal barriers libraries sometimes face when a crime has been committed in the library while providing for continued protection to a core foundational value of libraries: protecting patron privacy in their reading histories, materials borrowed, resources reviewed, or services used at the library. The greatest change to the Michigan Library Privacy Act in SB611 has come in clarifying that a library record does not include video surveillance and that video surveillance can be turned over to law enforcement without a court order if it shows no identifying records. By updating the current Act, we are making libraries safer by hastening the investigation of crimes committed in the library and on library property through video surveillance.

View the bill as passed by the House: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2019-2020/billengrossed/Senate/pdf/2019-SEBH-0611.pdf
MLA will be developing educational sessions after the new year to address the changes in the Act.