Critcatenate: #critcat in April 2023

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.

#critcat in April 2023:

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 (for example, headings on list 2301 were approved in January 2023).

New LC headings of note on list 2301:

  • New LCSH: Capitol Hill Organized Protest, Seattle, Wash., 2020
  • New LCSH: Chatbots
  • New LCSH: Post COVID-19 condition (Disease) [with a Use For for Long COVID (Disease)]

New LC headings of note on expedited list 2302:

  • Lots of headings have now been given the macron over Māori (for example, Architecture, Maori is now Architecture, Māori)

Of note in LC decisions: LC received multiple proposals to add new subject headings and class numbers for specific Indigenous groups, but those proposals were rejected because no evidence of consultation with members of those groups was shown. See LC’s Summary of Decisions 2302.

Upcoming:

  • Wednesday May 10: Public Forum for RBMS CVRMC Prejudicial Works Terminology, hosted by the Prejudicial Materials Working Group of RBMS’s Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group, focusing on the 50 proposed genre/form headings to be used for indexing works that are prejudicial in nature or related to systems of oppression.
  • Tuesday May 16-Friday May 19: Medical Library Association/Special Libraries Association joint conference. The full schedule isn’t available yet, but please attended these two critcat-related sessions:
    • “Collaborative Approaches to Improving MeSH,” lightning talk by Violet Fox and Kelleen Maluski
    • “Subjected: Investigating the Impact of MeSH Terms on Underrepresented Groups,” group presentation
  • Wednesday May 17-Friday May 19: Critical Pedagogy Symposium online event. Critcat-related sessions include:
  • Wednesday May 24-Thursday May 25: Critical Approaches to Libraries Conference, an online conference organized by librarians in the UK. Critcat-related sessions include:
    • “Using the Homosaurus in a public library consortium: a case study” presented by Rachel Fischer
    • “At the intersection: IFLA LRM, Queer Theory, and Marxism for conceptualising gender variance in the bibliographic universe” presented by Kris Massengale
    • “Collaborative cataloguing ethics: a code for all seasons” presented by Jane Daniels, Karen Snow, Beth Shoemaker, Diane Pennington, May Chan & Sarah Furger
  • Thursday July 20: 2023 Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, an online all-day event. The keynote speaker will be Suzette Chang of nonprofit organization Thick Descriptions

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

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