That would be awful. As a former reference librarian the thought that they might be doing that just rankles. Have you thought of asking at the library to see if they did it? It's a violation of the ALA (American Library Association) Bill of Rights. This policy states that an individual has the right to privacy without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others.

..........."All users have a right to be free from any unreasonable intrusion into or surveillance of their lawful library use."......

Librarians have been threatened with jail for refusing to disclose what their patrons are reading and the Courts have upheld an individual's right to receive information in a public library without disclosure under the first Amendment.

I would never have thought, nor condone a library selling patrons' lists.

I remember when ex-DH and I first bought our house ( a new build). It wasn't long when we were getting calls from windows, carpet-cleaning, landscaping, etc companies.

I wouldn't think the library would do a thing like that. Sounds more like something they have gotten off the internet. I used the public library since I was 13 and never there was never any reason to thing they had done that.

I sent for loads of garden-type catalogs one spring. All of a sudden began getting literally TONS of junk mail. Most of it I just threw away, not stuff I was interested in-home improvements, cruises, all kinds of expensive things. Lots of phone calls too. Continued for several years, then tapered off. Now I receive very little "junk" mail, including very few seed catalogs, which I did like and occasionally ordered from. My mother taught me what to say to annoying salespeople on the phone-nothing, just hang up.

I'm trying to figure out if there could be other reasons - have you researched any online sites like Amazon or Barnes and Noble for large print books or looked for information about reading glasses?

Did you by chance do any on-line searches for the books? I know I have searched for various things and soon after I would get emails about similar items. Even from posts here. Yesterday I mentioned ophthalmologists. This morning I had an email about eye glasses.

Businesses have robots crawling the web to pick up such information. All they want at that time is your email addy, then the flood begins.

Sue

I get travel ads because that is what I searched for. I get a couple of cruise brochures a year.

If you read the fine print on AARP, it says they will not sell or release your name to anyone except to those advertisers in their magazines. (not exact wording). I know the charities get money from selling names and if you ask, they will stop but they do get upset. When I fill out a guarantee on a produce, I put name and address only, and never fill out likes, etc.
I guess with economy the way it is businesses and organizations will do anything they can to get money. It is too bad the CEO of many don't take less and do more research.

Whenever possible, when I have to register somewhere, I register my name or address with a little code to indicate to whom it was given. Whether varying the spelling, or put a PO box, apt number, dept number or something. Then I know who gave it out. I caught a former employer selling names to competitive companies or somehow they got the list whether it was sold to one and resold to the competitor makes no difference to me.

Dotmom, that sounds like much more than a coincidence! I'd get a hold of the library and start working up to the library board if necessary. That does sound fishy. I would not be surprised at all if they were selling lists. I never thought of that. But with the financial bind libraries are in now, they're looking for any way possible to make some extra bucks.

Jasdip, your situation is common and it's probably not from the builder. Places go to public records and get lists of people who just bought new cars, used cars, bought a house and the like. Then those people get ads for car dealers, windows, carpet cleaning, and the like. I was reminded of this when I bought the last vehicle and got all kinds of mailings from the dealerships.

Did you know your voter registration info is public record? Campaigns often go there since they can get records of people who actually *do* vote and they can concentrate on them for their mailings and calls. It's also a good spot to look when you're trying to find someone who's ducking you! Ah, those fun days of process serving! LOL

This happened where we lived over 6 years ago. Those were my budding computer days when all I has was a hand-me-down desk top, and barely knew how to turn it on, so, no I wasn't doing any research. I couldn't figure out how else they knew we read large print books. Not a big deal, really. I just wondered if that was how the book clubs got our name. I really don't have anything to hide, I just hate to think of all the trees that were wasted to make the paper they used for those mailings.

Hi dotmom,

Spring is coming.

Be a good neighbour - plant a tree.

They're the oxygen-generators of this precious world.

Sorry - I have nothing additional to offer with regard to the possible reasons for your having gotten all of that trash.

ole joyful

OJ, I would plant a tree if I could. We can't even plant flowers in our apt house yard.