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 practice, standards, and infrastructure.
#critcat in June 2025:
- call for volunteers: the Diverse BookFinder (DBF), an online, searchable database designed to facilitate the discoverability and exploration of books for children and youth featuring BIPOC characters, is looking for volunteers to join their Metadata Community of Practice. If you’re interested in reading picture books, early readers, middle grade, and young adult literature, this is a good opportunity to ensure books featuring BIPOC characters are easily findable.
- new issue: the Spring 2025 issue of Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art features multiple articles on the importance of reparative description in GLAM:
- Critical Cataloging: Researching American Art History on Its Own Terms by Tracy Stuber, Jennifer Way
- Critical Cataloging, or Why Collection Descriptions Should Be Reviewed by Martien de Vletter
- Considering Asian American Collections and Critical Cataloging by Christina Ayson-Plank, Rihoko Ueno
- The Incluseum Metadata Schema: An Ongoing Learning Journey by Rose Paquet
- Critiquing the Catalog: The Fine Arts (N) Range of the Library of Congress Classification System, Systemic Bias, and the Potential of Digital Technologies by Stefanie Hilles
- A Conversation on Critical Cataloging by Bree Midavaine, Rosalie Hooper, Sophia Meyers
- new article: The African American Subject Funnel Project: Definitions, History, and Processes by Glenda Alvin, Erica A. Bruchko, and Michelle Cronquist in College & Research Libraries News
- new article: Sustainably Critical Cataloging: Maximizing the Impact of Term Funding with the Black Bibliography Project by Mara Caelin, published in RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage
- new podcast episode: Violet Fox on the Catapod podcast, hosted by William Blueher. We talk about the Cataloging Lab, recent changes in LCSH, the perils of overstandardization, questions about who should be maintaining our cataloging and classification standards and who should pay for that work, cataloging staffing trends, the tension between the Library of Congress and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, the work of the PCC EDIBA Advisory Committee (Program for Cooperative Cataloging’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging, Accessibility Advisory Committee), privacy in name authority records, zine librarianship and zine cataloging, why librarians should edit Wikipedia, and more.
- new webinar recording: Inclusive Cataloging: One Step at a Time, from the Evergreen Library System. Topics include the adoption of terms from Homosaurus, the adoption of the optional arrangement of the Dewey 200s by the Springfield City Library, local terminology in the Evergreen ILS, and an “Illegal immigration” project.
upcoming:
- Thursday July 17: Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma. Free and online. Sessions:
- Perspectives on SACO Work in Uncertain Times / Michelle Cronquist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Allison Bailund, San Diego State University; Chereeka Garner, University of Central Florida; Beck Schaefer, York University; Deborah Tomaras, Marist University
- The Importance of Community: Planning a Reparative Description Symposium in Your State / Nicole Smeltekop, Oklahoma State University
- Partners and Neighbors: Reparative and Inclusive Description Projects and Partnerships at the University of Arkansas / Katrina Windon, Joshua Youngblood, and Adam Heien, University of Arkansas Libraries
- Repairing the Catalog: Using Reparative Description for Indigenous Subjects / Erica Moore, Cameron University Library
- The Zine Subject Thesaurus: Reflecting Radical Culture in Controlled Vocabulary / Violet Fox, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University and Amanda Stevens, Anchor Archive Zine Library
- Thursday October 9: Arrangement & Description for Future Communities webinar and live discussion, part of the DHPSNY Dialogues series from Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services for New York