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 April 2022:
- New report from the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC): “Revised Report on Recording Gender in Personal Name Authority Records,” recommending that name authority records created by PCC libraries should *not* record gender though a MARC code, and that gender codes in the Name Authority File be deleted system-wide. A really radical choice, thrilled to see it!
- New article: “Ethical and Anti-Oppressive Metadata: A Collaboration Between Catalogers and Archivists at George Mason University Libraries” by Liz Beckman, Lynn Eaton, Yoko Ferguson, David Heilbrun, Rachel Lavender, Tricia Mackenzie, and Dorothee Schubel, discussing a finding aid audit, an ethical name authority policy, & changing Cutter numbers.
- New article: “Towards More Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Representation in Metadata and Digitization: A Case Study” by Stephanie M. Luke, Sara Pezzoni, & Whitney Russell. “The metadata subgroup focused on improving metadata throughout our digital collections and library catalog. Our goals for this subgroup included: identifying problematic terminology with our digital collections and library catalog, flagging collections that may need closer review, creating standards and best practices for metadata creation by student employees and staff, implementing a statement for harmful language, reviewing materials for sensitive content, and evaluating how items in the Digital Gallery can be linked through tags.”
- News article: “Library of Congress changes reference to 1919 Arkansas racial violence to ‘Elaine Massacre” in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, about the September 2021 LCSH revision from “Elaine Race Riot, Elaine, Ark., 1919” to “Elaine Massacre, Elaine, Ark., 1919.” [Many other “race riot” headings exist in LCSH, including “Houston Race Riot, Houston, Tex., 1917”; “Detroit Race Riot, Detroit, Mich., 1943”; and “Memphis Race Riot, Memphis, Tenn., 1866.”
- New 41-page report from OCLC: “Reimagine Descriptive Workflows: A Community Informed Agenda for Reparative and Inclusive Descriptive Practice” by Rachel L. Frick and Merrilee Proffitt.
- Blog post about the new OCLC report from David Ferriero, head of the U.S. National Archives: “Learning and Growing with the Library and Archival Community.”
- California State University Libraries implemented their approach to LCSH Noncitizens/Illegal immigration in April, choosing to change Noncitizens → Undocumented immigrants and Illegal immigration → Immigration. They’ve provided information about their Alma normalization rules for other libraries to use.
- Presentation at Concordia University Library Research Forum 2022:
“Truth Talking in The Library: A Thematic Investigation of Statements on Bias in Libraries and Archives” by Jordan Pedersen, Cora Coady, and Tina Liu at the University of Toronto, reviewing the statements on bias by libraries compiled here. Here’s a short twitter thread recapping the presentation, looks like it was awesome. - Presentation at COSUGI 2022: “LOC Subject Headings and Diversifying a Collection” from the University of Dallas.
- An older project that was discussed at LILAC 2022: the “Catalogers at Work” project aims to “capture the complexities and decision making processes of cataloguing; amplify the invisible labour of cataloguing; make the power of knowledge organisation audible & understand how decisions are made as cataloguers attempt to organise the world’s knowledge.” Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski created an eight-minute recording, Sounding the Radical Catalog (transcript), which shares “the voices of activist librarians, who through their practice challenge the narrow articulation of gender, sex, identity, class and the colonialist visions embedded in library classification schemes.”
Upcoming:
- The Cataloguing and Classification Committee of ARLIS (art librarians organization in the U.K.) has a six-session “ARLIS Cat & Class ethics series,” which are all free, online. All will be recorded & available at the ARLIS UK & Ireland YouTube channel.
- Friday April 29: Cataloguing Code of Ethics 2021
- Friday May 6: Decolonization, Distance and Ethics
- Friday May 13: British Library Race Equality Action Plan
- Friday May 20: North American Indigenous languages
- Friday May 27: Inclusive Terminology Glossary
- Tuesday May 31: British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership
- Wednesday May 11: free webinar from Minitex: “Move Over Melvil: Towards More Inclusive and Accessible Library Collections,” including presentations on ditching Dewey for genrefication, as well as creating name authority headings for Indigenous content creators.
- Wednesday May 11-Friday May 13: 2022 OVGTSL conference held by the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians will feature several critcat-related sessions (virtual attendance registration $55):
- “Next Steps in Decolonizing the Catalog: Application of Indigenous Subject Headings at the University of Dayton” presentation by Jill J. Crane & Grace Huffman on replacing “Indians of North America” & other LCSH.
- “The Frontlog Quandary: A Case Study of DEI in the Cataloging Community” presentation by Jeremiah Kamtman discussing the impact of processing backlogs on providing access to music scores by composers of color.
- “Resources for Understanding Metadata and Description of Library Collections: Professional Development Tools for Technical Services” presentation by Andrea Morrison & Janice Gustaferro describing resources available for revising problem subject headings and more.
- Wednesday June 8: “Reparative Description” webinar from the Society of American Archivists, providing “practical guidelines, examples, resources, and best practices for making your collection descriptions more accurate, representative, and respectful of the people they represent and serve” ($49).
- Friday June 10: “Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion in Library Collections and Catalogs” will be the theme for the 2022 Joint Spring Meeting of Nebraska Library Association’s College & University Section and Technical Services Roundtable. Registration info to be announced (this meeting has been free in past years).
Please get in touch if I’ve missed anything relevant, I’d be happy to add it to next month’s report!