I feel there&#x27;s some political agenda to this uproar. Librarians and&#x2F;or librarian organization in Japan are have reasons for concerns as there are some movements in munincipalities delegating operation of their public libraries to commercial enterprises. This is causing bit of concerns for expecations of privacy for patron&#x27;s checkout record.<p>Company called Culture Convenience Club, operator of large book&#x2F;media chain Tsutaya, now operates some public libraries in Japan, which basically runs both a library and a book store in the premise; and patron can optionally associate their store card with library card, so each checkout from libraries would count toward their in-store point, I guess in return for the record they will keep about that checkout. (There have been some questionable book selection&#x2F;discard policies some take as conflict of interest, but that&#x27;s another story...)<p>So I feel, at least partially, they are using this as opportunity to increase public awareness of their position.