Month: March 2022

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Critcatenate: #critcat in February 2022

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, focusing on the ethical implications of library metadata, cataloging, and classification standards, practice, and infrastructure.

#critcat in February 2022:

  • Really terrific new article from Tina Gross “Search Terms Up For Debate: The Politics and Purpose of Library Subject Headings“, written for the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History magazine. A great resource for non-librarians or non-catalogers about recently contested headings and what’s at stake in critcat discussions.
  • New survey on cataloging and accessibility, from David Philip Norris at St. Catherine University. “The aim is to gain a better picture of how libraries and catalogers are aware of and making use of accessibility metadata in their cataloging, as well as the types of accessible materials in their collections.”
  • Panel titled “Critical Cataloging Conversations in Teaching, Research, and Practice” at the Visual Resources Association (VRA) conference included four presentations. Find a pdf of abstracts of this panel. The panel will be repeated at the VRA annual meeting in Baltimore on Tuesday, March 29.
    • “Describing Art on the Street: The Graffiti Art Community Voice” by Ann M. Graf
    • “Queer Work | Queer Archives” by Jennifer Sichel and Miriam Kienle
    • “Pattern and Representation: Critical Cataloging for a New Perspective on Campus History” by Megan E Macken and Louise E. Siddons
    • “Adapting to non-Western information workflows and protocols with Critical, Relational Metadata” by Devon Murphy
  • New recording available: “Body-Oriented Cataloging and the Future of Gender in Archives” presented by Travis L. Wagner, as part of the CAFe Speaker Series from the University of Maryland’s iSchool. Travis talked with catalogers about how they would describe historical footage of a gender nonconforming activity in a library catalog and uses their answers to reflect on positionality & cataloger’s judgment. Well worth your time!
  • New recording available of the OCLC Cataloging Community Meeting on Jan 28, including:
    • “Using the Homosaurus controlled vocabulary in both OCLC Connexion and in the local catalog” by Adrian Williams
    • “DEI in public library consortia: Trusting, collaborating, and thriving” by Misty Alvaro
    • “OCLC metadata DEI” by Cynthia M. Whitacre
  • Valuable twitter thread from Tracy Shields on MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) change from “Oceanic Ancestry Group” to “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander”.
  • From museum land, the UK’s Collections Trust is looking for feedback on a new draft of a document draft scope and policy questions titled “Rethinking cataloguing.”
  • New article on LitHub: “We Need to Radically Rethink the Library of Congress Classification” by Claire Woodcock. [I don’t think the author is a cataloger?]
  • Reminder about the ARLIS/NA (North American art librarians) Cataloging Advisory Committee’s new form to propose changes to problematic/offensive art subject headings: “CAC Launches Form to Propose Changes to Problematic Art Subject Headings“. [Note that that post provides a link to see what’s been submitted already and leave notes. If you have non-art related subject headings you’d like to note as “problematic,” the Cataloging Lab has a place to submit & review a crowdsourced list of problem subject headings.]

Upcoming: