Author: Violet

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 December 2024:

• New research survey: Premised on Care: Redescription as Restorative Justice in American Archives from Tonia Sutherland at UCLA. The study focuses on redescription and descriptive remediation practices in US archival repositories
• New special issue: volume 51 issue 7 of Knowledge Organization (KO) has the theme Critical and Social Knowledge Organization. Articles include:
  • Social Dimensions of Culture, Code-Switching, and Controlled Vocabularies by Heather Moulaison-Sandy, Karen Snow, Brian Dobreski
  • Developing Person-Centered Metadata: A Case Study of The Behaviours in Dementia Toolkit by Nick Ubels, Lisabelle Tan, Lauren Albrecht, Angel Long
  • Toward an Etiology of Harm for Knowledge Organization: Onto-Epistemic Injustice in Classificatory Systems of Record by Beth Patin, Tyler Youngman, Elliott Hauser
  • Information and Code Biases: Social Differentiation, Intersectionality and Decoloniality in Knowledge Organization Systems by Maria Aparecida Moura
  • Critical Control: How Different Forms of Vocabulary Control Aid and Hinder Novice Indexers Aiming to Support Racial and Social Justice by Chris Holstrom
  • Psychiatric Classifications in The Light Of Bibliographic Classifications: An Epistemic Justice Issue by Laurence Favier, Stéphanie Derdar
• New scholarly article: “Our Precious Heritage”: Catholic Subject Headings and the Assertion of Worldview through Cataloging by Deirdre Sullivan, published in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly
• New scholarly article: Bringing Order to Chaos Ethically: “Cataloging Code of Ethics” and Critical Cataloging by Dalila Mirović, published in Bosniaca, providing a perspective from Bosnia and Herzegovina
• New scholarly article: Improving and Expanding Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) During Times of Social Change: The Hispanic/Latinx Inclusive Terminologies Project by Aidy Weeks, Stephanie Fell, and Katie Hoskins, published in The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion
• New magazine article: Words Matter: Creating a Harmful-Content Statement to Build an Inclusive Catalog by Rachel Newlin and Aaron Bock, published in American Libraries
• New post: Libraries as the New Frontlines of Knowledge: Engaging with Indigenous Knowledge Systems, part 4 of a 15 part series on Decolonizing my Library, by Edgardo Civallero
• New blog post: Undertaking a Reparative Language Project at Haverford College by Mary Crauderueff, sharing work done on revising finding aids at the Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections in Pennsylvania, published on the SAA Descriptive Notes blog
• New blog post: Revising the Record: The Evolution of Describing Boarding School Collections,  discussing work done by the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections department at Washington State University Libraries
• New podcast episode: episode 140 of librarypunk is titled Metadata Related to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas feat. Katherine and Brandon, featuring a discussion of the work being done by the PCC Task Group for Metadata Related to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
• New webinar recordings: NIKLA (National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance)’s series from the Respectful Terminology Platform Project:
  • Subject-Headings Describing Indigenous Peoples in the RVM: a Tailor-Made Methodology presented by Susanne Brillant
  • Community-Building Through International Collaboration on Multilingual LOD Vocabulary: Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging, presented by Nathalie Guénette and Trang Dang of the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN)
  • Learning from Indigenous Voices presented by Sadie Anderson, providing an overview of the Saskatchewan Indigenous Subject Headings Project of the Provincial Library and Literary Office of Saskatchewan
  • Using Linked Data to Improve LGBTQ+ Description presented by Bri Watson and K.J. Rawson, discussing the Homosaurus
  • Revising Legacy Vocabulary: Interim Updates to Indigenous Related Terminology in the Canadiana Collections presented by Jason Friedman and Natalie MacDonald
• New intern posting: Inclusive Cataloging Graduate Internship at Emory University, “a paid graduate internship in inclusive resource description focused on subject analysis of LGBTQ+ materials and the application of LGBTQ+ terminology to improve description and discoverability of LGBTQ+ library resources.” [editor’s note: looking forward to seeing more of these paid opportunities!]
• New MeSH update: the yearly update of MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is now available: see the Use of 2025 MeSH in Cataloging for an overview of updates and What’s New in MeSH for a list of new subject headings
• New LCSH policy: An instruction sheet has been created to clarify policy regarding offensive words in subject headings: H 1922 Offensive Words. LC’s PTCP (Policy, Training, and Cooperative Programs Division) writes: “The new policy will be presented and discussed at the Quarterly LCSH/LCC Editorial meeting on January 17, 2025. PTCP has not yet had an opportunity to review the word lists in other languages that currently exist in LCSH. We welcome any proposals from those with the requisite language knowledge to cancel existing subject headings in languages other than English. Clean up in Library of Congress Classification captions for the English terms is under way and will also follow any cancellation proposal for terms in languages other than English.”

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2408 were approved in August 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2408:

• revised LCSH: from COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-  to COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-2023
• new LCSH: Día de la Raza
• new LCSH: Eating habits
• revised LCSH: from Egúngún (Cult) to Egúngún [along with multiple other headings formerly qualified with the word “cult”]
• new LCSH: Gender neutral parenting
• new LCSH: Historically Black Greek letter societies
• new LCSH: Israeli essays, with the scope note “Here are entered collections of essays originating in Israel in Hebrew or in several languages collectively. Such collections in Arabic are entered under Arabic essays–Israel; in Yiddish under Yiddish essays–Israel. Collections of such essays in other individual languages are entered under Israeli essays ([name of language]).”
• New LCSH: Palestine question (To 1948) in literature
• New LCSH: Seed banks
• New LCSH: Social media and youth
• New LCSH: Swifties (Music fans)

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up or I’ve missed anything!

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 November 2024:

• New call for study participants: Kristy Nowak at Colorado State University is working on a research project collecting data on alternative classification systems. Anyone who has developed a unique organization system for their collection, worked with a classification system other than Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress Classification, worked with a non-standard version of Dewey or LCC, or is interested in exploring or developing a new classification system/way of organizing materials is welcome to participate in this alternative classification systems survey.
• New call for proposals: the Journal of Library Metadata will publish a special issue titled Metadata in Late Capitalism, guest edited by Erik Radio at the University of Colorado Boulder. The deadline for proposals has been extended to December 6th. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
  • Tensions between AI and metadata in indexing and retrieval
  • Corporate hegemony and search (i.e. vendor lock, algorithmic preferencing)
  • New media and the limits of bibliographic description
  • Reification of data models in information systems
  • Data monopolies and vectoralization
  • Environmental costs of metadata production
• New MARC code: In 2024, a new Subject Heading and Term Source code (meshscr) was approved for adding information about demographic population groups in bibliographic records cataloged by the National Library of Medicine. This can be used to add information about over 1700 federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native tribal names and ethnic and ethnolinguistic minority terms, which were added to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in 2023 as Supplementary Concept Records (SCR) type 5 and designated as “Population Groups.” The entire meschscr vocabulary is available in the MeSH Browser and as MeSH RDF.
  • Example usage in a MARC record:
• New blog post: OSU Library Exhibit Documents Archivists’ Anti-Racist Description Work by Molly Rosbach, describing a new exhibit at the Oregon State University highlighting reparative description
• New resource: Critical Cataloging Quotes, featuring the quotes that were collected in response to the question “What is critical cataloging, and why is it important to you?,” as part of the Fresno State exhibit “Words Matter! The Inclusive Cataloging Movement Takes Flight”
• New recording: Access to Arabic Records in Library Catalogs: Romanization and Scripts by Iman Dagher
• New recording: Kurdish Materials: The Problem of Romanization and Its Effect on Access by Michael Chyet
• New recording: Implementing the Dewey 220-299 Optional Arrangement presented by Mark Swenson, Winnetka-Northfield Public Library District
• New recording: the November Cataloging Round Table hosted by the Vermont Department of Libraries was focused on critical cataloging efforts, featuring Jill Baron, Tina Gross, and Violet Fox
• New recording: Creating Maawn Doobiigeng: Developing A New Classification System For A Tribal Library, describing the process of creating a new classification for the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries in Michigan
• New conference paper: Hiding in Plain Sight: Medical Theses, Slavery, and Reparative Archival Practices by Anna Marie Schuldt, describing the reparative description work done in the Waring Historical Library Inaugural Theses Project
• New conference paper: Examining LGBTQ+-Related Concepts in the Semantic Web: Link Discovery, Concept Drift, Ambiguity, and Multilingual Information Reuse by Shuai Wang & Maria Adamidou, presented at the International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. Uses Homosaurus as an example to create an integrated knowledge graph to examine the concepts represented
• New presentation slides: Repairing Archival Description: AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Records by Jennifer Gathings Eidson
• New blog post: The Portrait of a Lady: Reparative Cataloging at the Rosenbach by David Rhys Owen, describing investigative work on a portrait who was misidentified in the documentation of the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia
• New-ish blog post: Toward Equity in Metadata: How Sandy Spring Museum Is Going beyond Reparative Cataloging by Allison Weiss on the American Alliance of Museums blog. Describes work done to digitize records relating to nineteenth century Black people in Sandy Spring, Maryland, a reparative cataloguing initiative titled “Equity in Metadata,” and the formation of a committee of descendants to advise the project
• New guide: Reparative Archival Description Working Group: Standardized Descriptive Notes, created by Yale’s Reparative Archival Description Working Group. Provides wording relating to descriptive language in resource titles and descriptions (for example, “This finding aid was revised in [year] to address [racist/sexist/euphemistic/oppressive], outdated, [and/or] harmful descriptive language. During that revision, description was changed in [general description of descriptive sites].”
• New-ish resource: Pan-American Authorities (PANA) is a bilingual English/Spanish subject heading list collaboratively developed by the University of Florida, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of California, San Diego (MARC code: pana)
• New-ish podcast episode: Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches, an interview with book editors Amber Billey, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl hosted by Jen Hoyer for the New Books Network
• New update: 2024 Update for Reparative Description from NARA (the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
• New open letter: An Open Letter to the National Archives and Records Administration From a Journalist by Archit Mehta, critiquing description in the the “Bending Towards Justice” exhibit at the National Archives Museum

It’s not specifically cataloging-related, but Critcatenate readers might be interested in reading my new zine, A Librarian Against AI; or, I Think AI Should Leave.

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2407 were approved in July 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2407:

• new LCSH: Anti-intellectualism
• new LCSH: Anti-war posters
• new LCSH: Close reading (Literary analysis)
• new LCSH: Gender-based violence in art 
• new LCSH: Prison gerrymandering

Two other interesting revisions on list 2407:

• For the established LCSH Sexual minorities, a new Use For has been added for Queer people
• A new LCSH has been added: English language–Slurs, which replaces several LCSH which were cancelled this month. Unusually, references have not been added, so there are no “Use for” on the new heading. The scope note reads “Here are entered general works on slurs in the English language as well as works on individual English-language slurs.” The cancelled LCSH are:
  • Gook (The English word)
  • Homo (The English word)
  • Shyster (The English word)
  • Slut (The English word)
  • Spade (The English word) 

Looking through the Summary of Decisions for list 2407, there’s multiple critcat-relevant proposals which were not approved, such as Hapa (Ethnic identity) and Slave rebellions in motion pictures. There was also a proposal to delete the heading Asperger’s syndrome, and instead use Autism spectrum disorder; this proposal was rejected, but changes to the Asperger’s syndrome headings will be announced in coming months.

Note the tentative list 2412 has a proposal to change the LCSH Trans-exclusionary radical feminism to Gender-critical feminism. If you have thoughts on that, consider emailing LC with thoughtful, constructive feedback by the deadline of December 17th at the address at the top of the page.

Upcoming:

• Tuesday Dec 3: Open Cataloging Rules (ORC) Fall/Winter 2024 webinar. “Representatives from the Rules Committee and the Executive Board will share updates about the ORC project and our plans for the coming year.”
• Thursday Dec 12: Centering LGBTQ+ Voices in Catalog Research: Insights from the Inclusive Catalog Use Lab webinar by Karen Snow and Brian Dobreski

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up or I’ve missed anything!

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 October 2024:

• New survey: Tiffany Henry, Discovery Cataloger at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, has created a new survey relating to critical cataloging and EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) metadata projects. The research project seeks to understand the types of metadata projects undertaken by LIS professionals specializing in metadata or cataloging in academic libraries around the United States within the past five years.
• New survey: the LAIPA (Latin American and Indigenous Peoples of the Americas) SACO Funnel is reviewing how people of Latin American descent and Spanish speakers are represented in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and their new “Hispanic Americans” LCSH survey asks questions about what terminology is most commonly used for resources about Latin Americans/Hispanic Americans
• New petition: All nine librarians at Western Illinois University are scheduled to be laid off in May 2025, including their Cataloging Librarian. All you need to do to support these librarians is sign the petition that will be sent to the WIU Board of Trustees; find more info at the Save WIU Librarians website
• New zine: Connecting with Our Radical History in Cataloging by Violet Fox, Elissah Becknell, Tina Gross, Amy Gabbert-Montag, Jaylene Telford, and Charlotte Kadifa. Created as part of a presentation for the Minnesota Library Association Annual Conference, the zine discusses the history of radical cataloging efforts and more recent updates; includes excerpts and illustrations from the Hennepin County Library (Minnesota) HCL Cataloging Bulletin, mostly from the 1970s
• New toolkit: Inclusive Metadata Toolkit, published by the DLF Cultural Assessment Working Group (CAWG). The toolkit consists of two components: the Inclusive Metadata Toolkit guide document, which provides context for the listed tools and resources in order to make them easier to use and navigate, and the Inclusive Metadata Toolkit resource directory, which serves as a sortable and filterable directory of inclusive metadata tools and resources to help you wherever your institution is at
• New news story:  about the reclassification of the book Colonization and the Wampanoag Story by Linda Coombs
  • Texas Condemned for Placing Book on Colonization in Library’s Fiction Section in The Guardian
  • Texas County Sidelines Librarians, Reclassifies Book on Abuse of Native Americans as “Fiction” by Judd Legum
  • Decision in Texas Reclassifying Celebrated Native Book Diminishes Indigenous History in America press release from PEN America
  • Attacks on People’s Stories Are Attacks on People. Just Ask a Librarian. in The Washington Informer
  • Montgomery County Library Will Reclassify Book About Native Americans Amid Pressure in Chron
  • Texas County Reverses Classification of Indigenous History Book as Fiction in The Guardian
• New assignment: Thinking Critically about Knowledge Organization created by Carolyn Caffrey. “This is part of an introductory first-year class to the university where students are introduced to the library and asked to think critically about how information is organized using the framework of critical cataloging. After watching a short video [“Queering Classification”] on the idea of classification and its problems with fixing identity categories, students analyze and categorize selected book from the collection, and then reflect on how knowledge is organized and their choices as authors.”
• New article: Learning Takes More Than One Way of Knowing: Embedding Indigenous and Queer of Color Theory within Knowledge Organization Resources by Lydia Curliss, Travis L. Wagner, and Diana E. Marsh, published in The Library Quarterly. Focuses on how how archival professionals and students are taught about cultural knowledges in archival description and how interventions could be applied to promote reparative justice
• New article: How Did We Get Here? Race and Ethnicity in Dewey Decimal Classification by Lisa Thornton, published in Knowledge Organization
• New article: Analysis of Two Thesauri Specializing in Women’s and Gender Studies by Luciane Paula Vital and Fabio Assis Pinho, published in Knowledge Organization. Reviews two Brazilian thesauri, the Tesauro para estudos de gênero e sobre mulheres (Thesaurus for Studies on Gender and Women) and the Tesauro de género: lenguaje con equidad (Gender Thesaurus: Language with Equity)
• New article: Representing Gender in Library Catalogue: Developing Multilingual Homosaurus for Automated Subject Indexing by Roshni Mitra and Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay in the Journal of Information and Knowledge
• New article: When Catalogers and Archivists Come Together: The Creation of the Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium by Shay Beezley and Heather Scheele-Clark, published in Collaborative Librarianship
• New issue: Volume 68, number 4 of Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS) is dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity and access. Critcat-related articles include:
  • Inclusive Collecting, Inclusive Cataloging: Acquiring and Describing Award-winning Books Honoring Diverse Experiences by Karen Kohn, Emily Crawford, Noa Kaumeheiwa, Jenny Pierce
  • Keepin’ it Inclusive: Inclusive Cataloging Scholarship of the 1990s by Tiffany Henry, Alyssa Nance
  • Rules, Privacy, and Ethics: Challenges in Creating Author Name Change Guidelines by Angela Yon, Emily Baldoni, Eric Willey
  • Increasing the Discoverability of LGBTQ+ Materials: A Case Study of the Homosaurus and Vendor Automation by Kyle Tanaka, Brinna Michael, Sofia Slutskaya
  • Text Mining Bibliographic Metadata for Inclusivity: Analyzing Most Frequent Words in Titles, Summaries, and Subjects by Janelle Bitter
  • Where Do I Belong? Creating an Inclusive Metadata Policy by Nicole Lewis, Karen Glenn, Jeremy Myntti, Sharolyn Swenson, Katie Yeo
• New-ish article: Homosaurus, Queer Vocabularies, and Impossible Metadata by B.M. Watson in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
• New-to-me blog post: Women, Disability, and Reparative Description in IWA by Iowa Women’s Archives student specialist Abbie Steuhm (from 2023)
• New presentation: Queering Archival Metadata? The Discoverability of Queer Collections in GLAM Institutions and Universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand by Alison Day. Look for the full paper in the upcoming DCMI 2024 proceedings
• New presentation recording: How and Why Critical Cataloging and Reparative Description Support DEI Goals at CMU and Globally by Central Michigan University archivist Marian Matyn
• New presentation recording: Reparative Redescription and Metadata Migration at the University of Virginia by Katie Rojas, describing their strategy for updating descriptive metadata and migrating it from various legacy systems and formats into ArchiveSpace
• New webinar recording: Approaches to Reparative Archival Description in Yale Special Collections by Jennifer Coggins, Monika Lehman, and Michelle Peralta of Yale University Library’s Reparative Archival Description Working Group
• New webinar recording: What We’re Learning: Implementing a Harmful Language Audit, describing the project Entitled Excavating Bias: A Reparative Audit of Philadelphia Area Finding Aids. Speakers are John Anderies of the William Way LGBT Community Center, Betts Coup of Harvard University, Faith Charlton of Princeton University, and Sam Sfirri of the University of Pennsylvania
• New webinar recording: A Diversity Audit of Juvenile Picture Books: What We Did, What Went Well, What We Would Never Do Again!! by Stephanie Anderson of Albany Public Library, includes significant discussion of description challenges in ensuring diversity in children’s books
• New award announcement: the 2024 Nancy DeLaurier Award of the Visual Resources Association was awarded to members of the Trans Metadata Collective in recognition of their role in the research and development of “Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources”
• New checklists available: a volunteer group of catalogers known as the SACO Volunteer Trainers Group has created multiple new checklists to ensure anyone submitting new LCSH are consulting the correct instructions sheets. All checklists can be found at the SACO Resources page. The new checklists are:
  • Geographic names
  • Parks, reserves, national monuments, etc.
  • Buildings

Upcoming:

• Wednesday Nov 13: Metadata, Metadata, Metadata hosted by the Ohio Digitization Interest Group. Online; register by Monday, November 11, 5pm. Presentations include:
  • Best Practices for Queer Metadata by Chloe Misorski
  • Edward B. Taylor Collection (containing more than 700 images of Dayton’s African-American community) by Rachael Bussert & Karen Brame
• Friday Nov 15: Creating Maawn Doobiigeng: Developing A New Classification System for a Tribal Library presented by Kehli Henry and Anne Heidemann, hosted by the Network of the National Library of Medicine. Find more information about Maawn Doobiigeng, the new classification system of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries, at their website.
• Tuesday Nov 19: AI and the Ethical Librarian presented by the Oklahoma Library Association Technical Services Roundtable

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up or I’ve missed anything!

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 September 2024:

• New call for submissions: Descriptive Notes, the blog of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Description Section, is relaunching its series on Inclusive and Reparative Description practices and projects in archives. Descriptive Notes welcomes articles, announcements and updates, shared resources, and visual content relating to issues of archival description, including case studies, projects, collaborations, and any conversations that would be of interest to readers. Read more about SAA submission guidelines and email saadescription@gmail.com to submit.
• New toolkit: Disability and Accessibility Subject Headings Toolkit created by the DEI in Metadata Networking Group of Illinois. This new toolkit joins the group’s LGBTQ+ Toolkit and Immigration Subject Headings Toolkit
• New news story: How Inclusive Metadata Fosters Diversity in Museum Collections by Jennifer Micale, highlighting the Binghamton University Art Museum archive project
• New recording: Queer Literature Indexing Thesaurus (QLIT) presentation hosted by the Nordic Network for Queer History Archives and Activities. QLIT, which includes 900 terms and is based on Homosaurus, is led by the archivist of Sweden’s Archives and Library of the Queer Movement
• New recording: How to Queer the Catalogue presented by Adam Cohen and Jules de Guzman at CAPAL24, describing a project at Mount Royal University Library to supplement print bibliographic records with terms from Homosaurus
• New recording: Slowing Down For Metadata Justice: On Learning To Trust Our Bodies And Ourselves by Bailey Hoffner, a webinar hosted by the Metropolitan New York Library Council. Describes the need to collectively construct a values-based foundation to see, understand, and subvert the structural discrimination built into our information system
• New blog post: Remote Coworking As A Model for Reparative Description by Betts Coup, published on the SAA (Society of American Archives) Descriptive Notes blog, describing a strategy for getting more reparative work done on description in finding aids
• New article: Where Do I Belong? : Creating an Inclusive Metadata Policy by Nicole Lewis, Karen Glenn, Jeremy Myntti, Sharolyn Swenson, and Katie Yeo at Brigham Young University, published in Library Resources & Technical Services
• New article: Comparing Critical Cataloging Procedures and Developing Local Policies in the Context of Digital Library Metadata by Sarah Werling and Erik Radio, published in Journal of Library Metadata
• New article: Stop, Collaborate, and List ‘Em: Creating Local Metadata to Promote User Discovery of Minoritized Identities in a STEM Collection by Paige J. Dhyne and Alyssa Nance at Furman University, published in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship
• New article: Preserving Ukrainian Identity: Ethical Cataloging of Ukrainian Music in Soviet Publications by Laikin Dantchenko and Jack Haig Nighan, published in Music Reference Services Quarterly
• New article: Queering the Language of Dynasty in Imprints and Bibliographic Metadata by Elise Watson, published in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
• New article: Defining an Ontology for Museum Critical Cataloguing Terminology Guidelines by Erin Canning, presented at the 9th Workshop on Linked Data in Linguistics. Presents the proposed ontology for the project Computational Approaches for Addressing Problematic Terminology (CAAPT)
• New article: Identities Classified: Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems and Gender in the “Age of Information” by Ia Kholan Bull, Diana E. Marsh, and Travis L. Wagner
• New chapter: The Decolonization of Arctic Library and Archives Metadata (DALAM) Thematic Network at the University of the Arctic by Sharon Farnel, Sandra M. Campbell, David Cox II, Lars Iselid, Peter Lund, Susanna Parikka, Sharon Rankin, Ivar Stokkeland & Päivi Wendelius, published in the book Library and Information Sciences in Arctic and Northern Studies. Describes work done to improve efficiencies in circumpolar metadata decolonization efforts
• New report: Addressing Harmful Content in Collections by Rose Paquet  for the Oregon Heritage Commission. Includes background information on the national conversation on harmful language in archival description, links to guidance resources, information about Oregon-specific reparative work, and recommendations for future work
• New-ish PhD thesis: Sapere aude: educação catalográfica crítica by Filipe Reis. This thesis is in Portuguese with an English summary, discussing the education of library school students in critical cataloging work
• New PhD thesis: Adopting Critical Cataloging Practices Post-Diversity Audit: It’s Your Community’s Connection to Your Collection by Jessica K. Anderson. Reports on a survey of 100 Connecticut public librarians “to determine their experiences with collection audits as well as to investigate what drives or hinders the integration of inclusive cataloging reflective of community diversity”

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2406 were approved in June 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2406:

• new LCSH: Collective trauma
• new LCSH: Gender identity in video games
• new LCSH: Generational trauma
• new LCSH: Pregnant men 

Many new LCSH relating to Palestine and Israel, including:

• new LCSH: Blockade–Gaza Strip
• new LCSH: Gaza Strip–History–Blockade, 2007- 
• new LCSH: Gaza Strip–History–Bombardment, 2023- 
• new LCSH: Israel–History–Bombardment, 2001- 
• new LCSH: Israel-Hamas War, 2023-
• new LCSH: October 7 Hamas Attack, Israel, 2023
• new LCSH: Palestinian Arab diaspora

Multiple revisions relating to paralysis:

• revised LCSH: from Hemiplegics to People with hemiplegia
• revised LCSH: from Paralytics to People with paralysis
• revised LCSH: from Paraplegics to People with paraplegia
• revised LCSH: from Quadriplegics to People with quadriplegia

Take note of special list 2406a, which has many revisions relating to race, including revising Racially mixed people to Multiracial people and revising Miscegenation to Miscegenation (Racist theory). Congratulations and thank you to the African American SACO Funnel for this work!

Upcoming:

• Monday Oct 7-Friday Oct 11: 2024 LD4 Conference: Building Community for Linked Open Data, free and online, requires registration. LD4 2024 includes multiple critcat-related sessions:
  • Mobile Subjects in Linked Open Data: Biases and Gaps in Identity and Representation
  • LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group: Ethical Description of Humans on Wikidata: Panel & Community Discussion
  • Developing a Spanish-language Homosaurus: Using Multi-language Linked Data to Enhance LGBTQ+ Resource Discoverability
  • Controlled Vocabulary Linked Data for Improved Subject Access to LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Resources
  • Enhancing Search and Discovery for LGBTQIA+ Materials at the Orbis Cascade Alliance and Beyond: a Tour of the Homosaurus Implementation Project
• Tuesday Oct 8-Thursday Oct 10: OLAC 2024 (the audiovisual catalogers). In person in Minneapolis. Critcat-related sessions include:
  • A Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Toolkit for Audiovisual Catalogers presented by Treshani Perera
  • Accessibility Metadata presented by Teressa Keenan
  • Critical Cataloging & Solo Librarianship presented by Katie Yeo
  • Contextualizing Harmful or Offensive Materials in Your Collection
    presented by Elizabeth Burton
• Friday Oct 18–Saturday Oct 19: Reparative Description Workflows. Workshop presented as the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Fall Symposium, workshop facilitated by Stephanie M. Luke and Kristen Whitson. In person at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up or I’ve missed anything!

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 August 2024:

• Call for volunteers: PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging) Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Accessibility. It sounds boring, but we’ve been able to do some cool stuff (a position statement on privacy, starting a new group for Indigenous-related metadata, etc.) and I could use some co-conspirators on the committee! Volunteer for this or other committees at the PCC Question, Feedback and Volunteer Form
• New grant funding awarded: $400,000 IMLS grant was awarded for work studying terminology in cataloging related to the LGBTQ+ community and the Inclusive Catalog Use Lab, created by Brian Dobreski, Heather Moulaison-Sandy, and Karen Snow
• New article: From Gatekeepers to Facilitators: Transforming Metadata for Equitable Knowledge Access by Demetrius Currington, Laura Farley, Robert LaRose, and Maya Thompson, published in the Journal of Radical Librarianship. “The People’s Archive, the local history department of the DC Public Library set out to revise our metadata practices for digital collections to prioritize inclusivity and findability in our collections.”
• New article: Bridging Cultures: The Role of Cataloging to Find Connection
  by Russell Michalak, Pedro Maia de Oliveira, Devon Ellixson, published in College & Research Libraries News. Describes an EDI-focused recataloging project at the Goldey-Beacom College Hirons Library, initiated by a student-led collection development effort.
• New-ish book chapter: A Visual Workflow for Cataloging by Arden Kirkland and Minor Gordon, published in the book Universal Design for Learning in Academic Libraries: Theory into Practice. Describes the work of the Syracuse digital collections team to create a tool to improve the tools and processes of cataloging, aiming to “provide accommodations to catalogers who have formally disclosed disabilities as well as make the cataloging process more comfortable and productive for all, including those who may have invisible, undisclosed, or temporary disabilities, those who are new to the process, and those who have been doing it for years.”
• New conference proceedings: proceedings of the Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium are now available
• New recording: Improving Access to Indigenous Collections Through Classification and Metadata, August 2024 webinar hosted by NASIG, with these presentations:
  • Ka Wai Hāpai: Creating Indigenous Knowledge Organization in Hawai’i by Margaret Joyce
  • Improving Access to Indigenous Collections Through Classification and Metadata at Kwantlen Polytechnic University Library by Cleire Lauron
  • University of Toronto: Indigenous Metadata Work by Jordan Pedersen and Juliya Borie
• New recording: Reparative Redescription and Metadata Migration at the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections by Katie Rojas, part of the ArchivesSpace 2024 Member Forum
• New recording: Revitalizing Access: Enhancing Metadata for Inclusive Video Resources by Kristi Bergland and Mary Huismann, a lightning talk presented at MOUG 2024 (Music OCLC Users Group)
• New recording: Reparative Archival Description: The Past, Present, and Future, an April 2024 panel discussion hosted by Yale University Library’s Reparative Archival Description (RAD) working group, presented by Alexis Antracoli, Jackie Dean, Krista McCracken, Jessica Tai, Alison Clemens
• New recording: 2024 Somit Preservation Intern Project Presentation, focusing on the work done by University of Chicago Library interns Elliot Galvis and Amina Malik did to prepare the Hanna Papanek Photograph Collection for digital publication. Includes discussion of the development of a decision tree and collection statements to address ethical and privacy issues connected with making the collection public online.
• New article: Indexing the Information Age by Monica Westin in American Scientist, describing the adoption of Dublin Core and the increasing reliance on corporate-owned, closed-source standards for metadata on the web

I’m putting things about generative AI in their own section, because it bums me out that you’re all blithely moving forward with using these planet-killing hallucination machines that disregard intellectual property and populate bullshit based on the bigotries of the past.

The psychic-damage-by-AI section:

• New recording available: Experiments with a CustomGPT for Metadata Remediation discussing a project named the Inclusive Metadata Assistant, hosted by the From the Page platform
• New tool: Marriott Reparative Metadata Assessment Tool (MaRMAT), a Python application designed for auditing collections metadata files against a lexicon of potentially problematic terms; code developed by Kaylee Alexander in collaboration with ChatGPT 3.5, Rachel Wittmann, and Anna Neatrour at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriot Library
• New statement: AI Metadata Enrichment for Libraries from ExLibris discussing their “AI Metadata Assistant plans” promising to “conform to ethical considerations”

Upcoming:

• Thursday Sept 12: Bibliopolítica Celebratory Launch Event (online). At the intersection of Chicana/o/x Studies, Digital Humanities and Library History, Bibliopolítica: A Digital History of the Chicano Studies Library chronicles the history of one of the first Chicana/o/x collections, the Chicano Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The library was the creation point for the Chicano Thesaurus, first published in 1979
• Tuesday Sept 17–Wednesday Sept 18: 2024 NISO Plus Global/Online conference. Multiple critcat-related sessions, including:
  • Diverse, Equitable, Inclusive, and Open: Insights from a New Metadata Handbook, presented by Heather M. Campbell and Harriet Wintermute
  • Author Identity and Name Changes in Scholarly Publications: Ethics, Logistics, Impact, presented by Tilla Edmunds, Julie Zhu, Bri Watson
• Friday Oct 18–Saturday Oct 19: Reparative Description Workflows. Workshop presented as the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Fall Symposium, workshop facilitated by Stephanie M. Luke and Kristen Whitson. In person at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up or I’ve missed anything!

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 July 2024:

• New article: Critical Cataloguing and Contradiction Analysis: Using Mao Zedong’s Dialectical Materialism to Address Classificatory Antagonisms by Ryan Burley, published in the Journal of Radical Librarianship
• New webinar recording: Increase Religious Equity by Reclassifying Dewey 200s, the June 2024 OCLC Cataloging Community Meeting, with panelists Emily McDonald, Elizabeth McKinstry, Matthew Vasquez Jaquith, and Alex Kyrios
• New podcast episode: The Power of Good Description, episode 607 of Lost in the Stacks. “Features an interview with Alex Brinson, ACRL Fellow at the Georgia Tech Library, discussing her work with Alex McGee in describing archival material related to the admission application of Black student Robert Cheeseboro in 1953, and other hidden histories in the archives.” [see also last month’s Critcatenate for more info about the Uncovering Hidden Narratives project]
• New blog post: Staff repair harmful language and enhance description of student experiences in the collection, featuring work of the Presbyterian Historical Society on their records relating to the Tucson Indian Training School
• New blog post: The National Museum of the Royal Navy – Addressing Empire on the Collections Trust blog, describing work done to review the controlled terminology used in its catalog as well as creating new structures and more inclusive and non-specialist terminologies
• New presentation text: The Interdependent Library System: Revisiting Human Aspects of Library Automation by Ruth Kitchin Tillman
• New presentation paper: Infrastructures of Reparative Description by Alissa McCulloch, presented at VALA (Australia)
• New podcast episode: Decolonizing Archives with Martien de Vletter, episode 153 of the ArchitectureTalk podcast, discussing reparative description work done at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Also relevant: The Discovery of Absences from Martien de Vletter
• New recording: IGBIS Introduces the South African SACO Funnel: Instigating Change in Description, hosted by the LIASA (Library and Information Association of South Africa) IGBIS (Interest Group for Bibliographic Standards). Discusses the new South African SACO Funnel, which aims to review LCSH ” that represents a pre-Democratic Apartheid South Africa and commits to creating accurate, inclusive, and respectful terminology”
• New-ish document: A Guide to Creating Inclusive and Reparative Archival Description at Tulane University Libraries and Newcomb Archives
  and Vorhoff Collection, 30 page guide including case studies
• New-to-me recording: First Nations Collection Description Guidelines for the Library Sector from Tui Raven. I missed this webinar hosted by National and State Libraries Australasia in October 2023, but the recording is available online
• New book: The DEI Metadata Handbook: A Guide to Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Description edited by H. E. Wintermute, Christopher S. Dieckman, Heather M. Campbell, Nausicaa L. Rose and Hema Thulsidhos, published by Iowa State University Digital Press
• New book: Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches edited by Amber Billey, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl, published by ALA Editions. Lots of great stuff so I’m sharing the table of contents here.
  • Chapter 1. Ways of Knowing: The Worlds Words Create / Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski
  • Chapter 2. This Is the Work: A Short History of the Long Tradition of Inclusive Cataloging—Critiques and Action / Violet Fox and Tina Gross
  • Chapter 3. Describing Themselves: Diverse Library Cataloging, 1930-1970 / Sasha Frizzell
  • Chapter 4. A (Very) Select History of Inclusive Cataloging / Karl Pettitt
  • Chapter 5. Did Libraries “Change the Subject”? What Happened, What Didn’t and What’s Ahead / Jill E. Baron, Violet B. Fox and Tina Gross
  • Chapter 6. Accessibility Metadata and Library Catalogs: Current Outlook and Initiatives / Christopher Carr, Teressa Keenan, Chris Oliver
  • Chapter 7. Gendered Information and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging / Matthew Haugen and Michael L. Stewart
  • Chapter 8. From “Afrofuturist comics” to “Zombies in comics”: Inclusive Comics Cataloging from A to Z / Allison Bailund, Steven W. Holloway, Carole Sussman, Deborah Tomaras
  • Chapter 9. Critical Cataloging Beyond the Core / B. M. Watson
  • Chapter 10. Words Matter: Creating a Harmful Content Statement for Your Public Library / Rachel Newlin and Aaron Bock
  • Chapter 11. Coming to Terms: Enacting Reparative Change in and Urban Public Library OPAC / Miriam Gloger and Amy Mikel
  • Chapter 12. Enhancing Subject Access to LGBTQ+ Materials: It’s Not Just About the (Rainbow) Crosswalk / Jawahir Javaid and Becker Parkhurst-Strout
  • Chapter 13. Access, Identity, and Context: Inclusive Cataloging in the Hayes Research Library at Perkins School for the Blind / Jennifer Arnott
  • Chapter 14. Reparative Description for Collection-Level Archival Records: A Case Study / Allison McCormack
  • Chapter 15. Reparative Cataloging as a Solo Librarian: a Special Library Case Study / Katie Yeo
  • Chapter 16. Representing Gender-Diverse Creators in Indiana University Cook Music Library’s Online Catalogs / Laikin Dantchenko
  • Chapter 17. Promoting Inclusivity and Cultural Humility Through Cataloging: A Digitization Project / Elyse Fox, Lynn Sanborn and Pachia L. Vang
  • Chapter 18. A Place to Think About Inclusive Cataloging / Bronwen Bitetti, Vic Panata and Sebastian Moya
  • Chapter 19. Retrospective Cataloging Project for Respectful and Inclusive Metadata: Revising LC Call Numbers for Black People / Yuji Tosaka
  • Chapter 20. The Trans* Collections Project: Conducting a Diversity Audit to Assess, Grow, and Make a Collection More Discoverable / Brittany O’Neill, David Comeaux, Marty Miller, Michael F. Russo, Zachary Tompkins
  • Chapter 21. “It Isn’t Part of Our Language”: Engaging Indigenous Peoples to Facilitate Self-Naming in Subject Headings / Steven Folsom and Laura E. Daniels
  • Chapter 22. Out of Many, One: A Unified Approach to Inclusive Description at Clemson University / Jessica L Serrao, James E. Cross, Scott M. Dutkiewicz, Charlotte Grubbs, William D. Hiott, and Shannon Willis
  • Chapter 23. Subject Heading Enhancement: A Reparative and Inclusive Practice at the University of Virginia Library / Jeremy Bartczak, Veronica Fu, and Carmelita Pickett
  • Chapter 24. Canceling “Primitive”: A Subject Heading Revision Fifty Years in the Making / Jamie Carlstone
  • Chapter 25. One Step at a Time: Using Targeted Pilot Projects to Achieve Meaningful and Scalable Metadata Reparation / Savannah Lake, Joseph Nicholson and Jenn Brosek
  • Chapter 26. Automating Inclusivity: A Case Study Detailing how to Automate Inclusive Cataloging in Alma / Rachel Turner, Maggie McGee, Brian Morse, Leslie Feldballe, and Maria Planansky
  • Chapter 27. Inclusive Cataloging in an Academic Library Consortium / Allison Bailund, Anamika Megwalu, Julie Renee Moore, Yoko Okunishi and Israel Yanez
  • Chapter 28. Reparative Cataloging at The Washington Research Library Consortium: Moving Ideas into Action in the Shared Environment / Matthew Bright, Yoko Ferguson, David Heilbrun and Jacqueline Saavedra

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2405 were approved in May 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2405:

• Multiple LCSH revised: from “cult” to “religion,” for example, Afro-Brazilian cults to Afro-Brazilian religions; from Espiritismo (Cult) to Espiritismo
• UF removed: the Use For Mongolism (Disease) was removed from the subject heading Down syndrome
• New LCSH: Universal design fonts

Upcoming:

• Thursday August 8: Spanish Homosaurus Summit: Making Spanish Language LGBTQ+ Collections Accessible at UCLA
  • 10-12: Workshop the Spanish Homosaurus: Work with grant partners to review terms from the initial draft of the Spanish Homosaurus. This event is open to all but designed for Spanish-speakers (of any level).
    12-1: Lunch
    1-2: Project Introduction and LGBTQ Collections Tour at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
    2-4: Community Co-Design Sessions: An opportunity for those interested in the accessibility of LGBTQ+ cultural heritage resources to identify challenges, opportunities, and engage in collaborative visioning. Sessions will be conducted in English and are open to all.
• Tuesday August 13: Improving Access to Indigenous Collections Through Classification and Metadata, webinar hosted by NASIG and presented by Margaret Joyce, Cleire Lauron, Jordan Pedersen, and Juliya Borie

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 2024:

• New online learning module: Uncovering Hidden Narratives from Georgia Tech. Read the news post and the story behind the project, spurred by the questions of first-year student Sam Bolton. The learning module was designed by ACRL Diversity Resident Alex Brinson with oversight from University Archivist Alex McGee. “The course is broken into three main sections: the traditional narrative around integration at Tech and the efforts of Black students before 1961; the process of discovering the Board of Regents records, including historical context and the lack of “inclusive description;” and how the Georgia Tech Library now describes such records to unveil the important stories contained within.” A quiz invites participants to make their own description decisions.
• New guidelines: Best Practices for Queer Metadata by the Queer Metadata Collective, which builds upon earlier work done by the Trans Metadata Collective (but doesn’t supersede that work). Topics include classification, subject headings, harmful content statements, name authority records, Wikidata, and much more.
• New call for volunteers: the LAIPA SACO Funnel is looking for a co-chair. The Latin American and Indigenous Peoples Funnel Project works to improve subject headings relating to Indigenous peoples. It’s an exciting time in the funnel as we look forward to working with the new LC Program Specialist (Sarah Kostelecky) who has been hired to focus on revisions to terminology relating to Indigenous peoples (in LCSH and beyond). Consider helping guide that work! Email current LAIPA chair Sara Levinson at saralev@email.unc.edu with questions or to express interest.
• New recommendation: Recommendations and Guidance for Creating an Inclusive Language in Library Metadata Statement by the University of California Systemwide ILS Ethical and Inclusive Metadata Practices in UC Library Search Project Team
• New blog post: “Yours In Utmost Disgust”: Desegregation Letters To The Governor Of Virginia by Karen King and Maria Shellman on the Library of Virginia blog, discussing the processing of racist letters from constituents reacting to the desegregation of Virginia’s public schools
• New blog post: Resource Refresh: Updates to Inclusive Description Resources in the SAA Description Section Documentation Portal by Ashley Gosselar, published on the Society of American Archivists blog, discussing the updates to their Inclusive Description resource list
• New article: Conscious Editing-Driven Metadata for Archives and Digital Collections: A Case Study by Ann Abney, Amanda Boczar, Sydney Jordan, published in The Journal of Academic Librarianship
• New article: Archival Meta-Metadata: Revision History and Positionality of Finding Aids by Owen C. King, published in Archival Science
• New (?) LibGuide: Guidelines for Reparative and Inclusive Description by Laurier University Archives and Special Collections staff
• New news story: New Resource Seeks to Link Spanish Speakers with LGBTQIA+ Library Materials by Freddy Monares at KNKX Public Radio (about the development of the Spanish language Homosaurus)
• New grant: $137,000 from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission will support the University of Georgia’s Finding Their Names project to digitize and enhance description and discovery of documents from approximately 80 collections related to enslavement in Georgia. The enhanced description will include a form of reparative description that will name enslaved individuals in item- and folder-level scope and content notes.
• New digital access: the HCL Cataloging Bulletins from the Hennepin County Library, published from 1973 to 1999 by the HCL cataloging team (including Sandy Berman), have now been digitized. Thank you to the MLIS students at St. Kate’s (Amy Gabbert-Montag, Jaylene Telford, and Charlotte Kadifa) who contributed this valuable digitization work! Issues includes additions to the HCL subject headings, Dewey classifications, and name authority records. An excellent resource for seeing examples of radical approaches to cataloging work in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

  

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2403 were approved in March 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2403:

• new LCSH: Anti-caste movements
• new LCSH: Anti-Zionism
• revised LCSH: from Cerebral palsied to People with cerebral palsy

New headings of note on list 2404:

• new LCSH: Gender binary
• new LCSH: Misoprostol
• revised LCSH: from Rapanui (Easter Island people) to Rapa Nui (Easter Island people)
• new LCSH: Spirit houses (Religious facilities)
• new LCSH: Spirit houses (Shrines)

New headings of note on list 2404x:

• new LCDGT: Gazans 
• new LCDGT: Zinesters

Please send congrats to me and the rest of the Medical Subject Funnel for all the headings on special list 2403a, revising Deaf to Deaf people and Hearing impaired to Hard of hearing people. List 2403x includes relevant changes to LCDGT. Very exciting!! Thanks to LC’s PTCP staff for the help in revising these headings.

In a real bummer of a decision, LC has announced that their monthly editorial meetings will no longer be open to the public. Instead, they will offer quarterly meetings that will discuss LCSH more broadly. This change reduces the amount of input library workers have on specific proposals, and reduces the opportunities library workers have to listen in and understand the decision making process behind LCSH decisions. LC editorial meetings have been open to anyone since August 2021. An open letter to LC about the editorial meetings decision was published in June 2024.

 

Upcoming:

• Friday July 12: Queering Metadata symposium hosted by the San José State University iSchool. Features a keynote by Bri M. Watson and a panel discussion by Chloe Misorski, Devon Murphy, and Adrian Williams
• Monday July 15–Wednesday July 17: IDEAL (Inclusion Diversity Equity Accessibilities in Libraries) Conference, hosted by the Association for Research Libraries. Critcat-related presentations include:
  • Promoting Reflection on Authority Records Relating to Indigenous Peoples Data Management by Laura E Daniels and Violet Fox
  • Whose Authority? Sustainable Organizational Change and Inclusive Descriptive Practices Management by Laura E Daniels and Jackie Magagnosc
  • Metadata for Everyone: Identifying Cultural Issues in Publication Metadata poster by Julie Shi
• Wednesday July 17: Would You DIE for Your Catalogue? Diversity, Inclusion & Ethical Cataloging, held in Edinburgh by CILIP’s MDGS, the Metadata and Discovery Group in Scotland. Sessions include presentations on EDI-friendly subject headings for children’s literature at the University of Strathclyde, the introduction of inclusive terminology at the Moving Image Archive, through to the implementation of an Inclusive Collections Statement at the University of Leicester and an overview of the work of the SCURL EDI Network. There will also be a presentation on the Ethics of Cataloguing by Diane McAdie and a workshop by Jane Daniels and Diane McAdie.
  • [editor’s note: I’m super confused by Diane McAdie presenting on DEI in cataloging when she wrote a newsletter post in January saying that DEI is a “leftist ideal that detract[s] from subject-based education, scientific research, intellectual debate, and free speech?” and is “indoctrinat[ing] our students”? Maybe there needs to be more vetting by our professional organizations of who’s profiting off this work.]
• Thursday August 8: Spanish Homosaurus Summit: Making Spanish Language LGBTQ+ Collections Accessible at UCLA
  • 10-12: Workshop the Spanish Homosaurus: Work with grant partners to review terms from the initial draft of the Spanish Homosaurus. This event is open to all but designed for Spanish-speakers (of any level).
    12-1: Lunch
    1-2: Project Introduction and LGBTQ Collections Tour at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
    2-4: Community Co-Design Sessions: An opportunity for those interested in the accessibility of LGBTQ+ cultural heritage resources to identify challenges, opportunities, and engage in collaborative visioning. Sessions will be conducted in English and are open to all.

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 May 2024:

• New survey: the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Steering Group of the ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts’ Bibliographic Standard Committee is looking to create an online platform for people from marginalized communities who are interested in cataloging and metadata work to connect with one another. They’ve asked people to fill out a short survey to see if Discord or another platform might work. The survey will remain open until June 14.
• New classification!!!: Introducing Maawn Doobiigeng (Gather Together), the new classification system of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries. The system is the result of a 2019 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services working to address the question: “How can tribal libraries use traditional ways of knowing and being to break free of the colonialist epistemology of existing library organizational systems that reinforce a damaging worldview?”

• New article: Instituting a framework for reparative description by Stephanie M. Luke & Sharon Mizota, published in the journal Archival Science. Features  interviews with representatives from nineteen institutions that had published or presented on their implementation of reparative description between 2017 and 2020. Introduces the Maturity Model for Reparative Description (MMRD), a tool to describe and classify reparative description work across eight evaluative categories. “The authors offer the MMRD as a flexible model for institutions to adopt and adapt as a framework for assessing their reparative description work, measuring the progress of their initiatives, and planning and projecting areas of strategic growth.”
• New blog post: Riot or Uprising? A Reflection on Race and Language in the Contested City by Melissa Rovner, published on the Chicago History Museum blog
• New blog post: Reimagine descriptive infrastructure: dreaming and enacting change together by Merrilee Proffitt and Mercy Procaccini
• New blog post: Critical Cataloging Interest Group Announces Subject Heading Changes in Catalyst, describing the work of the John Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Critical Cataloging Interest Group around the “Illegal immigration” headings
• New announcement: The Persons and Firms data of the Women’s Print History Project is now a part of the CERL Thesaurus, maintained by the Consortium of European Research Libraries (twitter announcement)
• New recordings available: from NETSL (New England Technical Services Librarians) 2024 Annual Conference, including:
  • Alternative Cataloging: Moving Beyond Dewey presented by Caitlin Staples
  • The Solution is Community: Problem Solving in Classification by Violet Fox
  • Bringing User Voices Into Cataloging Research by Brian Dobreski
• New recordings available: Practical Approaches to Reparative Description: A Workshop Series hosted by DPLA (Digital Public Library of America), featuring three sessions:
  • Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Metadata
  • Local Contexts: Tools for Supporting Indigenous Rights and Interests in Collections
  • Special Projects in Reparative and Inclusive Description
• New report available: preliminary report of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Task Group on Metadata Related to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
• New blog post: Taking on the Challenge: PCC’s Metadata Justice Work for Indigenous Communities by Katherine Witzig, published on the SAA (Society of American Archives) Descriptive Notes blog
• New blog post: Coming Together: How Metadata Creates Communication between Archivists and Catalogers by Joanna Fuchs, published on the SAA Descriptive Notes blog
• New to me: Reframing Reparative Description Initiatives through Critical Race Theory and Black Feminism by Grace Muñoz, published in 2021 on the SAA Descriptive Notes blog

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2402 were approved in February 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2402:

• new LCSH: Body positivity movement 
• new LCSH: Climate change adaptation
• new LCSH: Fat-acceptance movement
• new LCSH: Self-acceptance in children 

Multiple proposals related to the body positivity and fat acceptance headings were rejected; read the rationale for those in the LC Summary of Decisions for February 2024. An LCSH proposal for White flight was also rejected at the February 2024 editorial meeting.

Note that on the tentative (not yet decided list) of 2406, there are proposals related to miscegenation and Interracial marriage. Consider contacting LC if you have opinions about those proposals (see contact info at the top of the page).

In a real bummer of a decision, LC has announced that their monthly editorial meetings will no longer be open to the public. Instead, they will offer quarterly meetings that will discuss LCSH more broadly. This change reduces the amount of input library workers have on specific proposals, and reduces the opportunities library workers have to listen in and understand the decision making process behind LCSH decisions. LC editorial meetings have been open to anyone since August 2021.

Upcoming:

• Monday June 3–Friday June 7: NASIG 2024 Conference in Spokane, Washington, will have multiple critcat-related presentations, including:
  • “This Work is Urgent, This Work will Take Time”: Integrating EDI-A into Resource Description Workflows presented by Jennifer Browning
  • You Want Me to Catalog What? Practical Strategies for Cataloging Insensitive/Offensive Material presented by Mandy Hurt
  • LCSH and other LC vocabularies, a workshop on proposing LCSH revisions/additions presented by Melanie Polutta. Very nice to see LC taking this role!
• Thursday June 13: 2024 Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, a free, online event hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma. Sessions include:
  • keynote by Treshani Perera
  • Unraveling Metadata Justice: Librarians and Metadata Wranglers in Making Information Fair for Everyone, presented by Rebekah Silverstein (Oklahoma State University)
  • The Limits of Repair: The Case for and Boundaries of Reparative Description, presented by Rachel Searcy and Weatherly A. Stephan (New York University)
  • Reparative Analysis of OOHRP’s Oklahoma and OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender Collections, presented by Katanna Davis and Patrick Daglaris (Oklahoma State University)
  • Apparitional Representations: Disability History, Reparative Descriptions, and Ethical Failings in a Special Research Collection, presented by Melissa Weiss
  • Unveiling Hidden Stories: Interactive Digital Humanities Resources Empower Research on Underrepresented Communities, presented by Megan Macken, Sara Mautino and Amy Hunt (Oklahoma State University)
  • Inclusive Metadata through Bibliographic Control, presented by Kirsten Bryson and Devin McGhee (Metropolitan Library System)
  • Distributed Labour: Managing Harmful Language Work in A Canadian Library Partnership, presented by Matthew Fesnak (McMaster University Library) and Christina Zoricic (Western University)
  • Multilingual Metadata: The Pan-American Authorities Initiative for Spanish Subject Headings, presented by Rose Echeguren (University of Florida) and Devon Murphy (University of Texas at Austin)
  • Searching the Past, Finding the Present: Identifying Contemporary Tribal Communities in Gilcrease Museum’s Rare Books Collection, presented by Jana Gowan, Dr. Billy Smith, and Dr. Benjamin Pokross (Helmerich Center for American Research at Gilcrease Museum)
  • Creating Occult Identities and Subjects, or, How New NACO and SACO Funnels will Improve Access to Occult Resources, presented by Guy Frost (Valdosta State University) and Margaret Breidenbaugh (Cincinnati State Technical and Community College)
• Thursday June 13: On the Duality of Metadata: Potential Uses and Abuses of Provenance Information, webinar from DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative), moderated by Karen Wickett
• Friday June 21: OCLC Cataloging Community Meeting on the topic “Increase Religious Equity by Reclassifying Dewey 200s” describing the alternate arrangement for the Dewey Decimal Classification 200s), which organizes religious subjects by chronology and geography
• Thursday June 27–Tuesday July 2: ALA Annual Conference 2024 in San Diego, California, where critcat-related presentations include:
  • • Words Matter: Inclusive Cataloging in an Academic Library Consortium, panel presentation by Luiz Mendes (CSU Northridge), Allison Bailund (San Diego State), and Julie Renee Moore (Fresno State)
    • Unseen Labor and Words Matter!: Making the Invisible Visible in Critical Cataloging, poster presented by Julie Renee Moore (Fresno State) and Suzanne López (Fresno State)
    • Assessing Accessibility Metadata in Audio-visual Catalog Records at the University of Tennessee Libraries, poster presented by Anchalee Panigabutra-Roberts and Jordan Lanagan
    • Diversity of Cataloging Professionals, poster presented by Preston Salisbury (Mississippi State University)

   

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 April 2024:

• New reviews of and insights into the Unseen Labor exhibit at Fresno State Library:
  • Unseen Labor, An International Library Community-Organizing Embroidery Project and Exhibit About Metadata, Our Stories and Our Service review by Kristin Baer, published in the ARLIS/NA Library Exhibitions Review
  • A Cataloger’s Work Behind the Scenes: Reflecting on the “Words Matter” Exhibition at Fresno State Library review by Yasmin Rodriguez, published in the ARLIS/NA Library Exhibitions Review
  • Illuminating Cataloging Through Exhibitions, Education, and Outreach Efforts by Julie Renee Moore, published in the Society of California Archivists spring 2024 newsletter
  • Words Matter! Bringing Cataloging from Behind-the-Scenes to Center Stage by Julie Renee Moore, published in Technicalities
• New recording: Getting Started with Gender Inclusive Cataloging, presented by K.R. Roberto, hosted by LibraryLink NJ (slides)
• New blog post: Change the Subject: Making the Library Catalog More Inclusive by Tara Kunesh at Emory University Library; including a link to a list of 200+ potential subject heading changes they are considering
• New blog post: Piloting Reparative Description and Metadata in SNAC via the Indigenous Description Group, published on the Society of American Archivists Description Section blog, discussing the work of the Indigenous Description Group in the past year
• New blog post: A New Face for an Old Library Catalog: JHU Libraries’ “Statement Regarding Harmful Content” written by Martha S. Jones at Johns Hopkins University
• New post: Project to address harmful language relating to Indigenous peoples receives prestigious Mellon Award , sharing information about the $1.8 million grant for the Respectful Terminologies Platform Project (RTPP) co-created by Stacy Allison-Cassin and Camille Callison with the National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance (NIKLA), in collaboration and with the support of the University of the Fraser Valley.
• New report: Inclusive Description Recommendations of the Cooperative Metadata Team published by the University of South Carolina Libraries Cooperative Metadata Team
• New webpage: Metadata-Focused DEIA Training. hosted by the Cataloging and Metadata Committee of the Music Library Association
• New column: lcsh-es.org (LC Subject Headings in Spanish = Encabezamientos de materia LC en español) by Tamara Fultz, providing information about the background and status of the LCSH in Spanish database
• New update: RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group  announced an update to the RBMS Controlled Vocabulary for Rare Materials Cataloging (RBMS CVRMC) and RBMS Relationship Designators. All terms and their scope notes are searchable on id.loc.gov.
• New article: Another Look at a Knowledge Organization Pioneer: Traces of Racism in Paul Otlet’s Writings by Fidelia Ibekwe, published in Knowledge Organization
• New-ish article: Revealing the Archive, Reckoning with the Past: Inclusive Approaches to Institutional History by Melanie Maksin and Debra J. Bucher at Vassar College, published in Reference Services Review
• New webinar recording: Alternative Vocabularies: What To Do When LCSH Isn’t Enough, presented by Sasha Frizzell, hosted by the South Central Regional Library Council. Focuses on Library of Congress Demographic Group Terms, Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, Rare Books and Manuscripts Controlled Vocabulary, and Homosaurus.

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2312 were approved in December 2023).

New LC headings of note on list 2312:

• New LCSH: Africanfuturism
• New LCSH: Black towns
• New LCSH: Jews, Azerbaijani
• New LCSH: Journalism, Fascist
• New LCSH: Man-man relationships
• New LCSH: Palestinian Arab students
• New LCSH: Press, Fascist
• New LCSH: Street style
• New LCSH: Streetwear
• New LCSH: Woman-woman relationships

Upcoming:

• Thursday May 2: That’s a Wrap!, a webinar reviewing the two critical cataloging exhibitions in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at the Fresno State Library during the 2023-2024 school year (“Words Matter!” The Inclusive Cataloging Movement Takes Flight and “Unseen Labor: a Traveling Embroidery Exhibition Expressing Their Work Through Fiber Arts”)
• Thursday May 2–Friday May 3: PCC Operations Committee Meeting, featuring updates about recent SACO (Subject Authority Cooperative) projects, the Indigenous Peoples Headings Project, and a presentation titled “Embracing Authenticity: Non-Latin Script Input in BIBFRAME and FOLIO”
• Tuesday May 7: Best of Core Forum: White Supremacy in the Stacks, presented by Preston Salisbury. “This session examines how Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal Classifications handle books on topics relevant to White Supremacy and how this perpetuates the idea of a color-blind or color-neutral society.”
• Friday May 10: Special Projects in Reparative and Inclusive Description, part of the Practical Approaches for Reparative Description workshop series hosted by DPLA
• Monday June 3–Friday June 7: NASIG 2024 Conference in Spokane, Washington, will have multiple critcat-related presentations, including:
  • “This Work is Urgent, This Work will Take Time”: Integrating EDI-A into Resource Description Workflows presented by Jennifer Browning
  • You Want Me to Catalog What? Practical Strategies for Cataloging Insensitive/Offensive Material presented by Mandy Hurt
  • LCSH and other LC vocabularies, a workshop on proposing LCSH revisions/additions presented by Melanie Polutta. Very nice to see LC taking this role!
• Thursday June 13: 2024 Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, a free, online event hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up!

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 March 2024:

• New call for volunteers: SAC Working Group on “Question” Subject Headings:
  • ALA’s Subject Analysis Committee is forming a working group to explore alternatives for instances of Library of Congress Subject Headings containing the word “question.” LCSH containing the word “question” often refer to boundary disputes or nationalist political movements and objectives. Others refer to a (sometimes unspecified) other type of question. Some could be considered problematic, and most are likely vague and unclear to library users. Examples include: Armenian Question, Cuban question, Eastern question, Irish question, Macedonian question, Palestine question, Silver question, Ukrainian question. Are you interested in helping to explore the “question” question? Do you have experience in applying any of the subject headings or class numbers in question, or expertise in one or more of the subject areas affected? If so, please consider joining the working group—contact the co-chairs (Allison Bailund, San Diego State University, abailund@sdsu.edu and Tina Gross, University of Minnesota, aboutness@gmail.com) by April 19th. You do not need to be a cataloger, or a member of SAC or ALA.
• New call for proposals: the 2024 Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium is a free, online event hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma. Proposals are accepted until May 1, with priority deadline April 15th. Proposal topics might include:
  • Reparative description for archival materials
  • Controlled vs. homegrown vocabularies – pros and cons, examples of projects, when and how to develop a local vocabulary
  • Alternative vocabularies – for example, creative uses of the Homosaurus for materials representing the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
  • Institutional challenges, lack of resources, solo work, etc. – challenges, how to work with what you have.
  • Providing description for audiovisual, oral histories, and/or other non-traditional formats
  • Staff training for inclusive metadata projects
• New call for advisory board members and focus group members: check out Raedial, an organization working on a database for appropriately describing children’s books featuring characters with diverse and intersectional experiences.
• New blog post: Dr. John Archer Library works to decolonize terms in library catalogue discussing work done by Saskatchewan Multitype Library Board to include Indigenous terminology and language in library catalogs
• New blog post: Updating the language we use to describe our collections by Emma Roache, describing work done by the National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa
• New post: CRKN Completes Phase II of the Indigenous Subject Headings Project, featuring work done by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network
• New article: Uncontrollable Vocabularies: Queer Theory, Sexual Identity, and the Catalog by Lynne Stahl, published in the Journal of Radical Librarianship
• New blog post: Description For All Virginians: Inclusive Description Efforts At The Library Of Virginia, providing examples of revisions done by the Inclusive Description Working Group at the Library of Virginia
• New article: Political Stances and Priorities in National Level General Classification Schemes by Yejun Wu, published in Knowledge Organization, featuring a comparison of the Chinese Library Classification, created by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries, created by the Republic of China (ROC) [Taiwan]
• New post from Australian vendor SCIS [Schools Catalogue Information Service]: Fostering Respect in Australian Schools through SCIS Authority Files discussing their use of AustLang (an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language database) in their authority files
• New post: Alumni TIES Small Grant Recipients Empower Communities to Foster Meaningful Change, highlighting the grant-funded work done by Richard Sapon-White to create create subject heading authority records for Indigenous peoples of Oregon, as well as the workshop and manual on Creating Subject Headings for Indigenous Topics, co-created by Richard Sapon-White, Richard, Pamela Louderback, and Sara Levinson
• New recordings: all the sessions of ALA Core Interest Group Week are now available. Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group included a presentation on “Homosaurus Usage in the OCLC Database: an Exploratory Analysis” by Paromita Biswas, Amanda Mack, and Erica Zhang
• New recording available: MELA 2023: Collaboration, Cataloging, and Acquisitions Challenges, from the Middle East Librarians Association conference. Presentations include:
  • Access Points in the Library Catalog, a Key to Discovery: Eyes on NACO and SACO Programs / presented by Iman Dagher, University of California, Los Angeles, and Denise Soufi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• New reviews of the Unseen Labor exhibit at Fresno State Library:
  • “Unseen Labor”, an international library community-organizing embroidery project and exhibit about metadata, our stories and our service, review by Kristin Baer
  • A Cataloger’s Work Behind the Scenes: Reflecting on the “Words Matter” Exhibition at Fresno State Library, review by Yasmin Rodriguez
• New guidelines: Ethical Cataloguing in UCD Digital Library, seven-page document created by University College Dublin metadata librarian Órna Roche, featuring sections on:
  • sensitivity criteria
  • language in descriptive records
  • under-represented communities in descriptions
  • language/imagery in the content
  • controlled vocabularies
  • guidelines for medical, disability, and related collections

Thanks to Carissa Chew of the Chew Inclusive Terminology Glossary for generous sharing of information!

Interesting discussion at MAC (the MARC Advisory Committee) in January, featuring a discussion paper (that is, an early, draft-ish proposal) to consider adding a new subfield i to the 245 field, which would “indicate the source of a transcribed title when that title contains harmful language and the title is from a source not readily apparent to general users.” So, for example, if there were offensive words in the transcribed title of a work, the subfield i could read “Title from item.” MAC had a whole lot of issues with this approach, and requested another discussion paper for their next meeting in June 2024; hopefully the Bibliographic Standards Committee of ALA’s Rare Book and Manuscripts Section can find ways to address those issues. Find the full discussion paper (2024-DP02) and recording (about an hour was spent on this topic).

I’m doing a brief review of the new LCSH lists for headings that might be of interest to readers of Critcatenate. 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 2311 were approved in November 2023).

New LC headings of note on list 2311:

• New LCSH: Hispanic-serving institutions
• New LCSH: Internalized racism 
• New LCSH: Librarians, Black
• New UFs added on existing LCSH: Race discrimination
• New LCSH: White American criminals
• New LCSH: White Americans

Also check out the LCSH additions and revisions on special list 2311a relating to Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and Neurodivergent people.

Upcoming:

• Friday April 5: 2024 New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) Spring Conference has a theme of “If It’s Broke, Let’s Fix It: Open Dialogue Between Problem and Opportunity.” Sessions include:
  • your Critcatenate editor, Violet Fox, will be presenting on the Cataloging Lab in the keynote panel
  • Alternative Cataloging: Moving Beyond Dewey by Caitlin Staples
  • Amplifying Voices with Metadata: Lessons Learned While Working with a Digitized DEI Archival Collection by Lisa Longenecker
  • Reimagining Access to Indigenous Resources: UConn Law Library’s Journey Toward Inclusivity by Susanna French
• Thursday April 18: Inclusive Cataloging webinar from Tim Keller at Oberlin College, hosted by OhioNet
• Thursday April 18: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Metadata, part of the Practical Approaches for Reparative Description workshop series hosted by DPLA [Digital Public Library of America]
• new course beginning April 21: Inclusive Description for Cultural Heritage Materials, presented by Treshani Perera and hosted by We Here
• Wednesday April 24: Cataloging Community Event for EMEA libraries, hosted by OCLC, featuring the talk Legacies of Catalogs and Cataloging Labor: past, present, future by James Baker, University of Southampton. [EMEA=Europe, the Middle East and Africa]
• Thursday April 25: Local Contexts: Tools for Supporting Indigenous Rights and Interests in Collections, part of the Practical Approaches for Reparative Description workshop series hosted by DPLA
• Friday May 10: Special Projects in Reparative and Inclusive Description, part of the Practical Approaches for Reparative Description workshop series hosted by DPLA
• Thursday June 13: 2024 Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, a free, online event hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma

Please let me know if there’s anything else coming up!