About

Anne Klinefelter served as Director of the Law Library at The University of North Carolina from 2007 to 2020 and was a member of the law school faculty from 2007 through 2024, retiring as the Henry P. Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita. Her academic focus includes privacy law, information law, and policy, often addressing how these issues intersect with libraries and legal information management. She has taught courses in privacy law and published extensively on topics related to information law, data protection, and digital privacy. In Fall 2019, she was the Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies at the University of Helsinki, where she taught United States Privacy Law and researched European Union data protection law. Professor Klinefelter has also served as an Adjunct Professor in the UNC School of Information and Library Science and was a member of its Administrative Board. Her leadership roles include active participation in the American Association of Law Libraries, where she received multiple awards, including the Marion G. Gallagher Award, the Charles Hicks Award, and the Distinguished Lecturer Award. She holds both her law degree and Master of Library Service degree from the University of Alabama.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Social Science
• Business
• Law and economics
• International trade
• World Wide Web
• Public relations
• Library science

Selected publications

• Copyright and Electronic Library Resources: An Overview of How the Law Is Affecting Traditional Library Services

  Routledge eBooks · 2021 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Library science

  As electronic resources represent a larger percentage of libraries’ purchases and services, copyright law, licensing, and other information laws are changing some traditional library functions. This article reviews the law of electronic resources through an outline of affected library services, including acquisitions and collection development; gifts, exchanges, and sales; archiving and preservation; circulation; interlibrary loan and document delivery; reserve; and research, reference, and instructional services. Legal issues considered include copyright, licensing, and database protection. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website: < https://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

  PublisherDOI

• Google LLC v. CNIL: The Location-Based Limits of the EU Right to Erasure and Lessons for U.S. Privacy Law

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Law

  As the United States considers preemptive federal privacy law, the discussion can be enriched by a reassessment of the EU example as illustrated in a 2019 decision at the European Court of Justice. The General Data Protection Regulation that took effect in 2018 is often described as an important model for unifying and centralizing data protection law in order to provide consistent protections of rights. But the Google LLC v. CNIL decision highlights that the EU law did not in fact create a monolithic system without room for Member State variation. This Article takes a close look at the way that the erasure right is articulated in the GDPR, examining how competing rights are balanced, how Member States' different approaches to balancing rights are accommodated, and how related provisions in the law inform an understanding of the erasure provision in Article 17. The Article also examines the 2019 Google LLC v. CNIL decision, exploring the Court's reasoning and the impact of the case on EU erasure rights and beyond. This Article draws on these examinations of the erasure-related provisions of the GDPR and of the Google LLC v. CNIL decision to advance a better understanding of how the influential EU Regulation embraces the possibility of significant Member State variation and ongoing balancing of data protection with expression and information rights. Guiding principles of subsidiarity and proportionality that are foundational to the European Union, incorporated into the GDPR, and evident in the Google LLC v. CNIL decision provide the basis for this national deference and deferred balancing. Together, subsidiarity and proportionality principles caution against extensive consolidation of privacy law into a one-size-fits-all solution. The United States can learn from the European Union that a monolithic and inflexible federal law many not only be difficult to enact but also undesirable.

  Publisher

• The Value of an Academic Law Library in the 21st Century

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Law

  Law school deans and university provosts may ask how law libraries can deliver value as new technologies, practices, and economic pressures inspire reassessment of legal education and of higher education more generally. The proliferation of information delivery systems, trends towards centralized management of higher education infrastructure, and changes in the law practice market suggest that the traditional law library may not meet current needs. But law libraries have the potential and opportunity to deliver strong value in this environment due largely to the sophistication of today's law librarians. The law library can be a center for expertise that can advance law school and university goals with vision and efficiency. This chapter describes the benefits that law libraries can provide through four different, though intertwined, functions: (I) to provide access to legal and law-related information; (2) to curate and preserve information and materials; (3) to provide services for scholarship, teaching, learning, and administration; and ( 4) to provide a welcoming place for people. This discussion considers how law libraries might fruitfully intersect with campus libraries, information technology, and other university infrastructure and highlights the benefits of collaboration among law libraries at different institutions. Although local goals and conditions will vary, this chapter provides insights that can apply to any academic law library.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Make a Plan. Then Change It. (Commencement Address)

  Faculty publications · 2019-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Commencement Address for the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, May 12, 2019. More information at "SILS honors graduates, outstanding teachers, and distinguished alumni at commencement."

  PublisherOA PDF

• Reader Privacy in Digital Library Collaborations: Signs of Commitment, Opportunities for Improvement

  Faculty publications · 2016-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  KLINEFELTER 203includes a partnership with the commercial legal research platform Ravel Law. 6 A number of other digital partnerships, small and large, are part of the evolving missions of libraries. 7 This increased access to digital information is praised as "free," 8 and these collaborative digitization efforts are promoted as egalitarian and democratizing. 9But the addition of new privacy risks in the digital

  PublisherOA PDF

• Privacy and Competing Library Goals: How Can Library Directors Lead When Values Collide?

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2015-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications

  Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy · 2014-09-16 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  In November 2004, the Association’s Council adopted Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications, a report prepared by a subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and approved by Committee A. That report affirmed one “overriding principle”: Academic freedom, free inquiry, and freedom of expression within the academic community may be limited to no greater extent in electronic format than they are in print, save for the most unusual situation where the very nature of the medium itself might warrant unusual restrictions—and even then only to the extent that such differences demand exceptions or variations. Such obvious differences between old and new media as the vastly greater speed of digital communication, and the far wider audiences that electronic messages may reach, would not, for example, warrant any relaxation of the rigorous precepts of academic freedom. This fundamental principle still applies, but developments since publication of the 2004 report suggest that a fresh review of issues raised by the continuing growth and transformation of electronic-communications technologies and the evolution of law in this area is appropriate. For instance, the 2004 report focused largely on issues associated with e-mail communications and the posting of materials on websites, online bulletin boards, learning-management systems, blogs, and listservs. Since then, new social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter, have emerged as important vehicles for electronic communication in the academy.

  PublisherDOI

• Is Confidentiality Really Forever -- Even If the Client Dies or Ceases to Exist?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2014-04-30

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Differential Privacy as a Response to the Reidentification Threat: The Facebook Advertiser Case Study

  North Carolina law review · 2012-01-01 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Recent computer science research on the reidentification of individuals from anonymized data has given some observers in the legal community the impression that the utilization of data is incompatible with strong privacy guarantees, leaving few options for balancing privacy and utility in various data-intensive settings. This bleak assessment is incomplete and somewhat misleading, however, because it fails to recognize the promise of technologies that support anonymity under a standard that computer scientists call differential privacy. This standard is met by a database system that behaves similarly whether or not any particular individual is represented in the database, effectively producing anonymity. Although a number of computer scientists agree that these technologies can offer privacy-protecting advantages over traditional approaches such as redaction of personally identifiable information from shared data, the legal community’s critique has focused on the burden that these technologies place on the utility of the data. Empirical evidence, however, suggests that at least one highly successful business, Facebook, has implemented such privacy-preserving technologies in support of anonymity promises while also meeting commercial demands for utility of certain shared data. This Article uses a reverse-engineering approach to infer that Facebook appears to be using differential privacy-supporting technologies in its interactive query system to report audience reach data to prospective users of its targeted advertising system, without apparent loss of utility. This case study provides an opportunity to consider criteria for identifying contexts where privacy laws might draw benefits from the adoption of a differential privacy standard similar to that apparently met by Facebook’s advertising audience reach database. United States privacy law is a collection of many different sectoral statutes and regulations, torts, and constitutional law, and some areas are more amenable to incorporation of the differential privacy standard than others. This Article highlights some opportunities for recognition of the differential privacy standard as a best practice or a presumption of compliance for privacy, while acknowledging certain limitations on the transferability of the Facebook example.

  Publisher

• Law Library Budgets in Hard Times

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2011-01-01

  articleOpen access

  This article begins by looking at the environment of the academic law library of the twenty-first century, followed by an analysis of the current economic climate and an assessment of how these difficult economic times will affect academic law libraries. The next section discusses strategies a law library director can marshal to manage a multimillion-dollar budget in face of reduced resources. Focusing in on the institution's own budget and accounting framework, creative thinking, and planning for use of resources can have successful and innovative outcomes for law libraries and the schools they support. Finally tools and strategies that can help support budget requests are discussed.

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Penny A. Hazelton

  3 shared

• Taylor Fitchett

  Texas A&M University

  2 shared

• Andrew Chin

  2 shared

• David S. Ardia

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  2 shared

• James Hambleton

  2 shared

• Jennifer Nichols

  1 shared

• Martin Garnar

  University of Colorado Colorado Springs

  1 shared

• Anne F. Jennings

  1 shared

Education

• B.A., English

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1973

• M.A., English

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1975

• Other

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1978

• Ph.D., English

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  1983

Awards & honors

• Marion G. Gallagher Award (2025)
• Charles Hicks Award (2019)
• Distinguished Lecturer Award (2012)
• Award for Outstanding Service and Contributions to the Profe…