Critcatenate: #critcat in September, October, November 2022

Critcatenate is an effort to keep folks up to date on critcat efforts with a monthly-ish roundup of news. Critcat is short for critical cataloging, focusing on the ethical implications of library metadata, cataloging, and classification standards, practice, and infrastructure.

I skipped two months of reporting, so there’s a lot this time around—buckle up!

#critcat in September, October, and November 2022:

• Creation of the Gender and Sexuality SACO Funnel, which will focus on terminology relating to gender, sexuality, and queer topics in #LCSH and other LC vocabularies & categories in LC Classification.
• Call for volunteers for a new Comics and Fiction NACO/SACO Funnel, which will focus on improving LCSH, LCGFT, etc., for comics and fiction cataloging.
• A customization of Primo showing Braille and Large Print formats in the search result and facets, from Northwestern University.
• New blog post: Diversity in the Stacks: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Catalog Searching from Penn Libraries about the efforts of their DEI and Discovery Working Group
• New blog post: Cataloging Libraries—How Subject Headings are Updated to Reflect Humanity from Wesleyan University about the work of a group of librarians, collections managers, and archivists to revise terms used in catalog records.
• The 23rd edition of the Sears List of Subject Headings is now available, edited by me (Violet Fox). It’s a great option for smaller libraries, especially school & public libraries in the U.S. & Canada, who don’t need the complexity of LCSH. Libraries who use LCSH may also consider using Sears as additional/alternative headings. Find a full list of new and revised headings at the link; some examples of revisions made in the 23rd edition:
  • Female circumcision to Female genital mutilation
  • Hearing impaired to Hard of hearing
  • Japanese Americans— Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945 to Japanese Americans — Forced removal and incarceration
  • LGBT people to LGBTQ people
  • People with mental disabilities split into People with intellectual disabilities and People with developmental disabilities
  • People with social disabilities to Socially disadvantaged people
• New article: The Development and Future of the Cataloguing Code of Ethics by May Chan, Jane Daniels, Sarah Furger, Diane Rasmussen, Elizabeth Shoemaker, & Karen Snow in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly.
• New article: Ζητήματα ηθικής στην καταλογογράφηση, ευρετηρίαση και ταξινόμηση του 21ου αιώνα (article is in Greek, the English translation is “Ethical Issues in 21st Century Cataloguing, Indexing and Classification”) by Elizabeth Khantavaridou.
• New article: “I’m really happy when sometimes I end up on a shelf that seems sort of right”: Historians’ Reactions to the Cataloging and Classification of their Own Work by Brian M. Watson, Julia Bullard. Paper to “report and discuss findings from an analysis of 14 qualitative semi-structured interviews with historians and historical researchers on how cataloging systems commonly used in cultural heritage institutions such as libraries label and describe works dealing with the history of Indigenous Peoples of North America.”
• New blog post: Newly Released: Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources, about the report released by the Trans Metadata Collective in June.
• New blog post: Metadata to Enhance Diversity, Connection and Belonging by Catherine Barnes, discussing the “language students use in your catalogue records to help diverse student groups feel thoughtfully represented in your library.”
• New blog post: Mending a History of Harm: “The ReConnect/ReCollect project [at the University of Michigan] unlocks the untold stories of the Philippine Collection and returns them to the Filipino community”.
• New blog post: Meet Kate Mitchell, 2022 Summer Fellow for Firestone Library, mentioning a project with fellow intern Quin DeLaRosa to “create a user testing model for reparative description in Princeton’s finding aids”.
• New blog post: Equity Analysis: a Tool for Reparative Cataloguing by Australian librarian Nina Whittaker, outlining strategies for addressing inequity in cataloguing.
• New blog post: Out of the Card Catalog Closet, on the JSTOR Daily blog, discussing the historical treatment of homosexuality in library catalogs and efforts to change it in the 1970s
• New recording: Social Justice in Cataloging: A Roundtable Discussion presented by the Middle East Librarians Association in September. The four presenters were:
  • Amber Billey, Systems and Metadata Librarian at Bard College
  • Basma Chebani, Associate University Librarian for Cataloging and Metadata Services, American University of Beirut Libraries
  • Michelle Cronquist, Special Collections Cataloger at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Denise Soufi, Metadata Librarian for Middle Eastern Languages and Special Collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• New recording: Repair, Restore, Reimagine: Reparative Archival Description Forum, presented by the Yale Reparative Archival Description Working Group on November 9. Included panel talks with Jackson Huang (University of Michigan), Ricky Punzalan (University of Michigan School of Information), Margery N. Sly (Temple University), and lightning talks by Alison Clemens (Yale University), Eileen Dewitya (UNC Chapel Hill), and Emmanuelle Delmas-Glass (Yale Center for British Art).
• New article: Subject Headings for the Colombian Conflict: The Case of a Digital Collection within the Medellín Public Library System Catalog by Maria Camila Restrepo-Fernandez (Universidad de Antioquia), featuring a proposal for the construction of a controlled vocabulary for the theme of armed conflict in cooperation with victims of violence.
• New article: Evaluating Metadata Quality in LGBTQ+ Digital Community Archives by Alexandrea Kord (Emory Libraries), featuring metadata quality reviews of Transas City, The History Project, and ONEarchives.
• New blog post: Recording Gender: An Ethical Cataloging Conundrum by Amber Billey, featuring a history of the past decade of recording gender in name authority records.
• New statement: Statement on the Metadata Rights of Libraries by the International Coalition of Library Consortia.
• New templates: Content statement templates for harmful language and content in digital collections from Devon Murphy, Karina Sánchez, and Theresa Polk at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries.
• New PCC guidance: Guidelines for the Use of ISO 639-3 Language Codes in MARC Records, providing information about inputting ISO codes into MARC records, allowing for information for about nearly 8,000 languages to be recorded accurately.
• Call for presentation proposals: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Cataloging and Technical Services, online conference hosted by Amigos Library Services in February 2023.
• Call for volunteers: is anyone interested in starting a medical librarianship SACO funnel with me (covering LCSH and MeSH)? Get in touch if you’d like to chat about the possibilities.

More events from the recent past:

• Wednesday September 14: Reparative Description: A Workshop on the Conscious Editing of Archival Collections, presented by Stephanie M. Luke, hosted by the Society of Southwest Archivists.
• Tuesday September 27: ALA Authority Control Interest Group meeting featured presentations on:
  • the RVM (Répertoire de vedettes-matière de l’Université Laval) [Québécois] Thesaurus and its editorial process
  • the possibilities of RDA representative expression elements in authority records
  • locally created/edited authority records being used by Oregon libraries (see the OLA Critical Cataloging Repository for more info)
• Thursday September 29: Restoring Nez Perce Material Culture, online presentation by Trevor James Bond, hosted by Pacific Northwest Historians Guild.
• Tuesday October 11: OLAC Coffee Talk: Critical Cataloging discussion with Julie Moore about tackling cataloging challenges.
• Monday October 17: Lessons Learned from a Reparative Description Project at Colorado State University, presented by Nancy A. Henke during the MN+ Digital Collections Conference and the Minnesota Digital Library Annual Meeting.
• Wednesday October 26: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategies in Metadata and Cataloging: An Exploration of Strategies and Discussions webinar from Tomeka Jackson and Jessica L. Serrao at Clemson University.
• November 8: Jumpstart Inclusive Cataloging, a one-day online workshop from Library Journal/School Library Journal with five presentations:
  • The Past and Future of Inclusive Cataloging by Violet Fox
  • User-Centered Cataloging: How to Use Community Education and Input to Update Your Cataloging by Katie Retterath Martin
  • Critical Data: Make the Case for Change in Your Library by
    Rachel K. Fischer
  • Critical Cataloging and Community Input: Khmer Collection by Jennifer Songster and Amber Wu
  • Tools and Strategies for Auditing and Recataloging Nonfiction by Meghan O’Keefe.
• Wednesday November 9: Inclusive Description Practices for Religious Collections by Treshani Perera, hosted by ATLA (American Theological Library Association)

New/revised headings of note:

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. FYI, LCSH list numbers consist of a two-digit number for the year and a two-digit number for the month the headings were approved (so, for example, headings on list 2207 were approved in July 2022).

New LC headings of note on list 2207:

• New subject heading: Deradicalization
• New subject heading: Generational trauma
• New subject heading: Information overload
• New subject headings: Mass incarceration and Mass incarceration–United States
• New subject heading: Top surgery (Gender reassignment surgery)
• New genre heading: Queer films
• New genre heading: Queer poetry

New LC headings of note on list 2208:

• New subject heading: Historically Black colleges and universities (as a narrower term under African American universities and colleges)
• Revised subject heading: from Manic-depressive illness to Bipolar disorder
• New subject heading: Sex role and sports

Proposed LCSH of note:

There are lots of proposed changes in tentative list 2212 for ADHD (getting rid of the Attention-deficit disorder headings and more) and Giants (separating folklore/fictional Giants from Tall people or Gigantism; find the proposed headings on this Cataloging Lab page). An additional tentative list 2212 (part 2) relates to changes from Slaves to Enslaved persons. Note that headings on tentative lists have not been approved yet. The headings on list 2212 will be discussed Friday December 16th. If you’d like to comment on these proposals (pro or con), an email address is available at the top of the list. You can also attend the editorial meeting remotely (I’d encourage you to do so!); find information about attending LC’s editorial meetings at this pdf.

Upcoming:

• Thursday December 1: Virtual Metadata Working Session with SSDN (Sunshine State Digital Network): “a two-hour working session to help prepare your team for conscious and reparative description work.”
• Monday December 5, 12, 17: User-Centered Cataloging, a three-part webinar series hosted by Katie Retterath Martin of Raedial
• Monday December 12: Retroactive Addition of Homosaurus: An Evaluation webinar from ALA Core, presented by Brinna Michael and Sofia Slutskaya of Emory University.
• Wednesday December 14: Incorporating DEI Principles into Our Metadata webinar from ALA Core, presented by Allison McCormack, Nicole Lewis, Rachel Wittmann.
• Wednesday January 11: Cataloging for Accessibility, an ALA Core webinar presented by Teressa Keenan, Head of Bibliographic Research Services at Mansfield Library, University of Montana
• Thursday February 2, 2023: Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Network Conference 2022. “Organised by the SCURL [Scottish Confederation of University & Research Libraries] EDI Network and the CILIPS [Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland] Metadata and Discovery Group Scotland to discuss EDI policies and practices in libraries.” Sessions include:
  • Exploring the ethics of cataloguing with Diane M. Rasmussen Pennington, Senior Lecturer in Information Science, Strathclyde iSchool, University of Strathclyde
  • Inclusive description of moving image at the National Library of Scotland by Ann Cameron, Moving Image Curator at National Library of Scotland
  • A discussion panel on the politics of metadata chaired by Joseph Marshall, Chair of the SCURL Collections and Metadata Group and Associate Director of Collections Management, National Library of Scotland.
• Wednesday February 8, 2023: “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Cataloging and Technical Services” hosted by Amigos Library Services.

Please get in touch if I’ve missed anything relevant, I’d be happy to add it to next month’s report!