Critcatenate is an effort to keep folks up to date on #critcat efforts with a monthly roundup of news. #critcat is short for critical cataloging, an effort focusing on discussing the ethical implications of library metadata, cataloging, and classification standards, practice, and infrastructure.
- New post relating to the “Illegal aliens” LCSH: OhioLINK adds alternative subject headings to Central Catalog MARC records. Also relevant are the OhioLINK Guidelines for Addressing Outdated or Offensive Subject Terms (pdf) providing information about adding local alternatives to LCSH in a consortial environment.
- New this month is the On These Grounds descriptive model for events involving enslaved people laboring for colleges and universities. Find a linked data vocabulary and a set of controlled vocabularies at that link.
- Post from March 2021 that had escaped my attention: An Intern’s Investigation on Decolonizing Archival Descriptions and Legacy Metadata by Laurier Cress.
- From the Description Section of the Society of American Archivists: Exposing Archival Mediations and Repairing Legacy Practices Through Redescription: Reprocessing the Luis Alberto Sánchez papers by Alexandra (Lexy) deGraffenreid
- May 13 2021 Twitter thread with questions and answers about how the LCSH proposal process works.
- New updates to the Chicago History Museum critical cataloging libguide include a mapping from LCSH to local subject headings they’ve included in their catalog.
- Request from the Cataloging Ethics Steering Committee for submissions of case studies exemplifying ethical issues in cataloging. Compiled case studies will act as an addendum to the recently completed Cataloguing Code of Ethics.
- A few of the new LCSH approved this month: “Settler colonialism”, “Conspicuous consumption”, “Night riding (Racial violence)”. “Concentration camps” has been deleted and is now replaced with “Internment camps” and “Nazi concentration camps”. “Noble savage” has been changed to “Noble savage stereotype”.
- New chapter: Sorrow, Fury, Helplessness, and Cynicism: An Account of the Library of Congress Subject Heading “Illegal aliens” by Jill E. Baron and Tina Gross, published in Borders and Belonging: Critical Examinations of Library Approaches toward Immigrants edited by Ana Ndumu.
- New chapter: “Words Matter: Examining the Language Used to Describe Mental Health Conditions in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)” by Carolyn Hansen, published in LIS Interrupted: Intersections of Mental Illness and Library Work edited by Miranda Dube and Carrie Wade.
- Crowdsourced list of DEI-related controlled vocabularies compiled by the Association of Moving Image Archivists Cataloging & Metadata Committee.
- Recording available of Inclusive Description in New York City, copresented by the New York Technical Services Librarians and the New York chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America. See the Inclusive Description in New York City session description for details. Speakers:
- Inclusive Description at Columbia University Libraries: From “Change the Subject” to Action by Matthew C. Haugen and Michele Wan
- “Changing the Subject” at Brooklyn Public Library and New York Public Library by Tomasz Kalata and Steven Pisani (shared during this session: an LCSH mapping for alternatives to the LC headings “Aliens” and “Illegal aliens”)
- User-Driven Reparative Archival Description at New York University by Weatherly Stephan
- Capstone project from University of Washington iSchool students Karli Cotton, Seth Kurke, and Keiko Yamamoto: Indigenous Representation in Subject Headings, focusing on strategies for the University of Montana. Includes 5-minute video summarizing recommendations.
- 2-minute video titled This Is America: Creating Anti-racist Metadata for Digital Collections, a poster session by A. Laura Ramirez describing work done by the University of Houston Metadata and Digitization Services on a small digital collection of Theodore de Bry’s America copper engravings.
- Now available: recording of Reimagining Description for Libraries, Archives, and Special Collections: an Anti-Racist Approach by Mary Sauer Games and Merrilee Proffitt.
Upcoming:
- June 18 2021: OCLC Cataloging Community Virtual Meeting includes a session on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Metadata, including these topics:
- Inclusive Description at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library from Celeste L Brewer, Yingwen Huang, and Kevin W. Schlottmann
- update on the Mellon Grant to reimagine descriptive workflows from Jennifer W. Baxmeyer
- Remapping LC subject headings in TRLN discovery from Cory Lown and Lynn Whittenberger
Please get in touch if I’ve missed anything relevant, I’d be happy to add it to next month’s report!