The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is an independent, community-led membership association of academic and research libraries and library consortia engaged in scholarly publishing, supported by its host institution, Educopia. LPC engages in community building, professional development, and research on behalf of its members and the larger community of library publishers. LPC actively collects personally-identifying information about individuals only to engage in the activities listed above. This policy intends to help our website visitors, community members, event participants, research partners, and research participants quickly understand how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal information.
Data Collection
Website
Our websites collect limited, non-personally-identifying information about visitors (e.g., referring site, browser, date and time of visits). LPC uses this data to improve the functionality of our websites (including librarypublishing.org and librarypublishingcreates.org) and the reach of our work. This information is used internally only, by staff members, for the sole purpose of refining our websites. (The term ‘staff’ in this document refers to employees of Educopia and LPC contractors.) We do not use potentially sensitive information collected by browsers and servers (e.g., Internet Protocol addresses) to identify visitors, and we do not disclose any information regarding these IP addresses to others. We do collect information regarding how often our resources are downloaded, and we may report this information as a bulk number in limited locations (e.g., our annual report or in grant reports to our funders), but this information is in no way personally identifiable and is reported only in the aggregate.
Individuals at LPC member institutions may request accounts on the LPC websites for the purpose of accessing member-only content or authoring posts. Our website platforms store a name, email address, a username, and a password for each account. The email address and password are always private, but the name and/or username may become public if the user engages in public activity on the site (e.g., authoring posts). A member institution or its representative can request at any time that an account be deleted.
Event registrations
Self-selecting visitors to the LPC website and LPC-related pages on third party web tools (e.g., Eventbrite) may choose to engage with LPC programs or projects in ways that do lead them to share personally identifying information, including through event registrations (e.g., forums, workshops, webinars). In these cases, LPC gathers only the amount and type of information that is necessary to the objective of the event (e.g., for an in-person forum event, collecting an attendee’s name, title, email address, and institutional affiliation). Visitors may refuse to supply this information at will, and LPC does not share this personally-identifying information other than in specific, documented circumstances to which the visitor explicitly agrees (e.g., by checking a box that says “My name, title, institutional affiliation, and email address may be shared with other event attendees via an attendance roster” to opt into such information sharing).
Research and assessment
LPC conducts research on library publishing and develops resources in support of library publishers, including the annual Library Publishing Directory. Except where permission has been explicitly given to share personally-identifiable information collected during these activities (e.g., as a listed contact in a Library Publishing Directory entry), we report out on responses in the aggregate, usually to identify system-level challenges, gaps, or opportunities.
LPC conducts surveys of its membership (e.g., votes on community activities) and event attendees (e.g., event assessment). In these cases, LPC typically does not collect personally identifying information. In circumstances where personally identifying information is collected, this information is used only to enable LPC to follow up with the visitor or survey respondent within the spectrum of activities clearly documented within the survey instrument and agreed to by the visitor or respondent. The personally identifying information is not disclosed to anyone beyond the staff and LPC leadership.
Since 2022, LPC has collected demographic information about program participants (including Library Publishing Forum attendees and committee volunteers) for the purpose of establishing a community baseline and measuring change over time, especially with regards to the impact of our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility programs. All demographic surveys are confidential and voluntary. We try to avoid collecting enough details to identify any individuals from the responses, and the raw data is never shared publicly. Still, we recognize that demographic information is more sensitive than some of the other types of data we collect, and we are creating processes for aggregating this data for storage purposes, rather than storing the raw data indefinitely.
Memberships and other affiliations
LPC collects personally identifying information and potentially personally identifying information in the processing of memberships, sponsorships, and strategic affiliate relationships. This information is disclosed only to the LPC/Educopia employees and contractors who need to know that information in order to provide services (e.g., in order to process services or submit payments or invoice clients), and in all cases, these employees and contractors agree not to further disclose this information. Some of these employees and contractors will be located outside of the home countries of our web visitors, members, and research partners. By engaging with our programs, visitors consent to the transfer of such information to those parties where it is necessary to perform services on their behalf.
Members and affiliates may also opt into communication channels (e.g., committee lists and community listservs) that require minimal personal information (i.e., name and email address). This information is not shared beyond staff and leadership and is used only for its intended purpose.
Management and Sharing of Personal Data
Data storage
LPC stores the data we collect in the cloud on Google Drive, our website, and other platforms as necessary.
Public identification of individuals
LPC will never share the identification or images/videos of community members or program participants publicly without meaningful consent. This applies to all communications channels, including LPC’s website and public news list and all social media. The method of seeking consent may vary by situation, and community members are expected to communicate their wishes about public identification when appropriate. Some examples:
- Recorded presentation: we will seek written permission from the presenters in advance to record their presentation and share it publicly; we will inform attendees during the event whether the chat or the Q&A are being recorded so that they can make an informed choice whether to participate.
- In-person event: attendees will be given the opportunity to indicate whether they are comfortable appearing in photographs of the event (e.g. by selecting the appropriate color of lanyard).
- Publication: volunteers who work on published content will be asked whether and how they want to be listed on the final product.
Institutional membership in LPC is public information, and community spaces are not confidential or anonymous. Regardless, community members are expected to adhere to the community policy around consent when using personal, professional, institutional, and/or organizational social media platforms to engage with one another and publicly identify individuals around LPC events, including with those individuals who may not be in attendance themselves, as outlined in the LPC Code of Conduct.
Data requests and data deletion
Any individual who has participated in our programs may request a copy of their personal information from our records at any time. Individuals may also request deletion of their information from our records and systems, though such information may be retained as necessary for LPC to fulfill its legal or financial obligations. Personal data as described in the rest of this policy is the sum total data acquired, and is deemed non-sensitive. As a membership organization and for planning and outreach purposes, LPC retains historical personal data indefinitely. At the request of an individual, LPC will fully delete personal data except as necessary to fulfill legal or financial obligations.
If an individual gives consent to being publicly identified or having their likeness shared, and then later changes their mind about whether or how they appear (e.g. a name change), LPC will do our best to honor those requests. Constraints on our ability may include technological limitations or the rules of formal publication, but we will work with the individual to try to come to a satisfactory resolution.
Policy updates
This policy will be reviewed and updated as needed. Updates are expected to occur rarely and they will be posted immediately to the LPC website and communication channels. By using these websites, visitors acknowledge that they have reviewed and agree to the current posted privacy policy. If you do not agree, we ask that you discontinue use of this site to avoid having your information collected, stored, or shared in the ways detailed above.
Last updated October 2026