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Loan History

This guide explains how library loan history will be handled going forward from January 2025 and what options are available to you.

About Your Loan History

Whenever you check out or return an item, our system keeps a record of the transaction, including details about the borrower and the specific copy borrowed.

You can view your loan history by signing in to your library account. The Loans section will show your current checkouts by default. To see items you've borrowed and returned, simply switch to the "Previous and Historical Loans" view.

To protect your privacy, starting in March 2025, UW Libraries will anonymize all loan history data older than six months. This means the records will no longer include identifying information about the borrower. While we’ll keep the loan data for collection analysis, we won’t be able to link it to individual patrons.

What do you need to do?

If you do not wish to maintain your full loan history:  Do nothing!  Starting in March, if your account has history older than six months, that older information will be anonymized, removing any connection it has to your account.

If you wish to maintain your full loan history:  Follow the instructions below prior to March 2025.

Opting in Required to Maintain Full History (Faculty, Staff, and Students)

If you want to maintain your entire loan history, prior to March 2025, UWGB faculty, staff, and students will need to complete the following quick process:

  1. Log into your Library Account and go to the Loans page by clicking your name.
  2. Switch from viewing Active Loans to Previous and Historical Loans
  3. Click the link in the Historic Loans box to View the Loan History app
  4. You should land on the Choose to Save Your Borrowing History page. Click the button saying "Yes, Please Save My History".
  5. You should see a confirmation message, and in a few minutes, your history should be visible in the app as well as on your Loans page in Search@UW.

Please note:  Within the Loan History App, there is also an option to download your loan history before it is anonymized. 

If you decide later that you do want your loan history anonymized, you can go back to that app and opt out, under the Settings page.

Instructions for Community Library Users

Due to technological limitations across systems, we are not able to offer loan history retention through the app for our community patrons.  We apologize for previous communications that caused confusion in this regard.

However, up until we anonymize loans in March, we can export your full loan history of returned items into a spreadsheet upon request.  After we anonymize the loans, we will only be able to provide the past 6 months of returned loan history.

To request an export of your returned loan history, please email circdept@uwgb.edu and give your name, NEW ERA card number, and address so we can verify your identity.  

You can view items currently checked out through your library account in Search@UW, or request a Borrowing Activity Report to be emailed to you, and keep your own records of your loan history.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Active loans for physical materials that are still in the possession of library patrons are not affected by this policy. Any materials that have been checked out and not yet returned will still show up in your library account and will appear in your loan history once they are returned to the library.
If you opt in to have us retain your full history, it will contain the item's title, author, loan date and other publication information. The loan history will not have a record of any digitization requests – only physical material loans.

Opting in increases the risk of exposure of this data to a security breach. The Libraries take our cybersecurity role very seriously in order to limit that risk, but improper and illegal access is always a risk no matter how securely a system is protected.

In addition, opting in to retention of your entire history means that the Libraries will maintain a record of what you have borrowed, and be able to provide it if required. If you do not opt in, we will only be able to provide 6 months of history if required. Your loan history is protected under Wisconsin state statute §§ 43.30 and the Libraries are not permitted to share your information with anyone besides you or your legal guardian. However, under rare circumstances, a library may be compelled by court order to release your circulation data to law enforcement as part of a criminal investigation.

While the libraries may use anonymized circulation data when making collections decisions, we do not utilize the individual personal circulation data in any way, unless requested by the patron or if needed to resolve a specific internal circulation question.
No. We do not share personal circulation history. Wisconsin state statute §§ 43.30 protects this information, and it will only be disclosed if required by a court order.

Patrons are strongly encouraged to download a copy of their loan history before their relationship with the university ends. There is a download button in the loan history app, which will produce a file you can open and save as a spreadsheet.

When a patron loses their UW-Green Bay account access, they will no longer be able to access their loan history. Furthermore, after a patron leaves, their record and loan history will be purged and not recoverable.