Privacy and Terms of Use

Privacy

InformationLiteracy.gov does not collect personal information when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information. If you would like to learn more about our use of personal information, please visit the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Privacy Program page.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically (Cookie Policy)

Our website, like many other websites, uses persistent and single session cookie technology (“cookies”). Cookies are a small text file that a website places on your web browser so that the website can recognize your computer. These cookies uniquely identify a browser on a computer, but never a person. Through cookies InformationLiteracy.gov may collect some or all the following: the Internet protocol address from which you access the website, date and time, the name of the website from which you linked to InformationLiteracy.gov, website usage, anonymous summary demographic information, and the browser and operating system used.

We use this information to aggregate metrics on website usage and identify system performance or problem areas.  We may anonymize and provide this information to third party entities for research analysis. We do not share or sell visitor data for the purposes of advertising, marketing, or any other commercial purpose.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies, although our website will also work without them. To learn more about the cookies we use visit this page.  If you don't want to accept cookies, you can edit your browser's options to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. Here's how you can disable cookies and/or Google Demographic and Interests reports.

If You Send Us Personal Information

If you choose to provide us with personal information by using our contact us form, we may use some of that information to respond to your comment. We will only share the information you provide to us with another government agency as required by law.

External Links

InformationLiteracy.gov includes links to other websites for your information and convenience. They are not intended to support private or commercial organizations or businesses.

Links to government and non-profit websites that share interests inherent to our mission are encouraged because of their general non-commercial, public-interest nature. Links to commercial domains are acceptable if supportive of users’ needs and relevant to our mission. When you select a link to an external website, you are leaving this website and are subject to the privacy and security policies of that external website. When you leave this website, remember that InformationLiteracy.gov:

• Does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of information contained on an external website.
• Does not endorse the organizations sponsoring external websites, and we do not endorse the views they express or the products/services they offer.
• Cannot authorize the use of copyrighted materials contained on external websites. Users must request such authorization from the sponsor of the external website.
• Is not responsible for transmissions users receive from external websites.
• Does not guarantee that external websites offer their services and webpages in any specific language nor that they comply with Section 508 (Accessibility Requirements) of the Rehabilitation Act.

We reserve the right to review links and add or remove links at any time for any reason consistent with federal policy or agency guidelines.

We do not agree to reciprocal link arrangements except in limited cases such as formal partnerships.

Copyright

Works prepared by U.S. government employees in the scope of their employment are not subject to copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. § 105. These works are in the public domain and may be copied and distributed without permission.  They are available for worldwide use and reuse and under the terms of CC0 1.0 Universal. Government trademarks and government agency logos, however, may not be used without permission. If you reuse our work, acknowledgment of publication by InformationLiteracy.gov is appreciated.

Please be aware that not all materials on our website are works of the U.S. government. You may find documents, illustrations, photographs, or other resources contributed or licensed by private individuals, companies, or organizations and these may be protected by copyright laws. Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use, requires the written permission of the copyright owners. We are unable to give copyright permission for any materials that are posted on our website for which the copyright is owned by a third party. If you would like to use these materials, please contact the copyright owner directly for permission.

If you have any questions, any more information about material on our website, or if you are the copyright holder and believe our website has not properly attributed your work or has used it without permission, please contact ogc@imls.gov.

Security

For website security purposes and to ensure that this website remains available to all users, this website hosting environment employs commercial software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration guidelines.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.

Updated: September 2023