Category: critcatenate

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 2025:

• new call for proposals: Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium 2025. The University of Central Oklahoma is looking for proposals for discussion sessions, group writing sessions, lightning talks, or other presentation formats for their annual virtual symposium. Proposals will be accepted through June 15th; preference will be given to proposals accepted by June 1st. Topics of particular interest include:
  • Obstacles you are facing due to the recent executive orders on IMLS or NEH
  • Efforts your library is making in light of recent obstacles
  • Reparative description
  • Alternative or homegrown vocabularies
  • Providing description for audiovisual, oral histories, and/or other non-traditional formats
  • Staff training for inclusive metadata projects
• new blog post: last month I missed this reflection on the LCSH revisions to “Gulf of America” etc. from the Australian perspective: The gulf of America from Hugh Rundle
• new blog post: On Fooling Around With Triples by Jez Cope. Investigating the question “Is the linked data published by the Library of Congress being materially changed as a result of the aforementioned flurry of executive orders?”
• new chapter: Metadata as White Ignorance by Jose C. Guerrero, published in Critical Race Theory in LIS: Challenging White Supremacy in Libraries. “This chapter challenges a commonplace understanding of metadata as a step toward knowledge – if not knowledge itself – by invoking Charles W. Mills’ (1997) concept of white ignorance to argue that metadata readily lend themselves to deliberate, constructed forms of not-knowing invested in white racial domination.”
• new chapter: Bias in the System: A Case for Catalogers’ Judgment by Annisija W. Hunter, published in Critical Race Theory in LIS: Challenging White Supremacy in Libraries. “If taught and trained with principles of CRT and convinced of the power of their catalogers’ judgment, catalogers can do anti-racist work by dismantling the bias in the system and making knowledge organization systems more equitably organized and accessible.”
• new scholarly article: Social Changes and Local History: The Challenges of Creating Discoverable Open Source Institutional Theses and Dissertations by Boutsaba Janetvilay, published in Libraries Bridging Boundaries: Challenges & Strategies for Global Openness. Describes a project to identify missing LCSH relating to people in the Central Valley of California
• new scholarly article: Reimagining Archives in the Age of Automation: A Decolonial and Relational Approach by Kara Long, Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq, Chris A. Lindgren, Andi Ogier, Lucy Aviññaq Boyd, Dylan Paisaq Itchuaqiyaq & Erin Yunes, published in Technical Communication Quarterly. Introduces the Relational Approach to Archiving (RAA) as a vital framework emphasizing the active involvement of communities in the archival process, and ensuring that their cultural knowledge and values guide how materials are preserved and described
• new award announcement: Cyrus Ford is the winner of the University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award. Ford was nominated for his significant inclusive cataloging work, including work through the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) Committee on Cataloging (ConC) and the MELA LCSH Working Group on proposals to create more neutral and precise terms that better reflect both historical and contemporary discussions on the issue of Palestine
• new award announcement: Sandy Berman has been awarded the 2025 Herb Biblo Outstanding Leadership Award for Social Justice & Equality for for outstanding leadership in promoting social justice and/or equality within the library profession
• new digital exhibit: Voices of the Catalog: An Introduction to the History of Hennepin County Catalogers, 1973-1999. Created by St Kate’s MLIS students Amy Gabbert-Montag, Charlotte Kadifa, and Jaylene Telford, highlighting the inclusive cataloging practices of Sandy Berman and the Hennepin County Library’s cataloging team
• new recording: Reparative Description: What Is It and How Can I Use It? by ALIAVic (the Victoria chapter of the Australian Library and Information Association). Includes information about many resources relating to First Nations collections
• new recording: PCC At Large Virtual Conference April 2025. Critcat sessions include:
  • South Asia SACO Funnel presented by Paromita Biswas & Lana Soglasnova
  • PCC SCS Task Group on Privacy in Name Authority Records presented by Ben Abrahamse
  • Derussification and Reparative Cataloging of Music from the Margins of the Soviet Union presented by Laikin Dantchenko & Jack Haig Nighan

AI Whatever:

• new scholarly article: AI Chatbots and Subject Cataloging: A Performance Test by Brian Dobreski and Christopher Hastings, published in Library Resources & Technical Services. “Overall performance of these tools was poor, particularly for assigning classification numbers.”
• Machine Learning Methods for Isolating Indigenous Language Catalog Descriptions by Yi Liu, Carrie Heitman, Leen-Kiat Soh & Peter Whiteley, published in AI & Society

Upcoming:

• Thursday May 8: book launch for Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create, edited by Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski
• Thursday May 8–Thursday May 22: free webinar series titled Engaging with Critical Cataloging Past and Present, presented by Minitex. Sessions include:
  • Thursday May 8: Critical Cataloging and the American Library Association Subject Analysis Committee with Tina Gross
  • Thursday May 22: Reviving the Hennepin County Authority File with David Lesniaski
• Monday June 23: As part of SEI, the Summer Educational Institute, Treshani Perera will be presenting on Inclusive Description and Subjects for Cultural Heritage Materials
• Thursday July 17: Metadata Justice in Oklahoma Libraries & Archives Symposium, hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma
• 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

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 March 2025:

• new book: Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create edited by Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski, featuring oral histories with the creators and editors of some of the most widely used alternative vocabularies in libraries: Chicano Thesaurus, A Women’s Thesaurus, and Homosaurus

• new podcast episode: Treshani Perera interview about inclusive metadata on the Catapod podcast, hosted by William Blueher
• new post: Classification as Colonization: The Hidden Politics of Library Catalogs by Mike Olson on The Scholarly Kitchen, disscussing the recent LCSH changes to the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali
• new blog post: Anticipatory Obedience at the Library of Congress by Violet Fox on ACRLog, discussing the recent LCSH changes to the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali
• new letter from Sandy Berman about the recent LCSH changes to the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. Thanks to Jenna Freedman for the upload!

• new webinar recordings available: ALA Core Interest Group Week. Critcat-related sessions include:
  • Cataloging and Classification Research Interest Group, featuring “The Ethics Evolution: Catalogers’ Perspectives Over Time” by Karen Snow and Elizabeth Shoemaker, and “Exploring Systemic Gender Bias in Library of Congress Subject Headings: A Comprehensive Study” by Sungmin Park and Yuji Tosaka
  • Faceted Subject Access Interest Group, featuring “Faceted Subject Vocabularies Increase Representation of Marginalized Communities in Biomedical Research” by Mego Franks
  • Cataloging Norms Interest Group, featuring “Cataloging for Accessibility: An Inclusive Approach to Yiddish-language Collection Description” by Michelle Sigiel
• new call for board members: the Homosaurus board is restructuring and looking for new volunteers for the Homosaurus Collective. They encourage individuals passionate about LGBTQ+ representation, linked data, and/or ethical metadata practices to apply for membership. Application closes on Wednesday April 30th.
• new call for committee members: SAC, ALA’s Subject Analysis Committee, is looking for members for three new working groups. Members do not need to be ALA members to participate. The new working groups are:
  • SAC Working Group on Scope Notes will identify LCSH headings that could benefit from scope notes. This will include gaining insights from the cataloging community on headings that they find particularly confusing or see often misapplied. The group will then draft scope notes for some of these headings in accordance with LC procedures, and submit them, with an eye to finding a clear workflow for headings that could benefit from scope notes. To join or ask questions, contact the chair: Margaret Joyce (mjoyce4@hawaii.edu)
  • SAC Working Group Opposing the Removal of $v (Form Subdivisions) from Subject Headings in “Modern MARC” will promote awareness of the Library of Congress policy to not include $v (form subdivisions) in subject headings as part of “modern MARC“; and will advocate for a reversal of that policy and retention of $v. Particular attention will be paid to investigating the effects of this change for non-academic libraries, articulating the usefulness of $v for users, and highlighting the negative impacts of the loss of this subfield. To join or ask questions, contact the chair: Deborah Tomaras (Deborah.Tomaras@marist.edu)
  • SAC Working Group on Local Authorities will work to ensure that the broader library community (with particular attention to non-academic libraries) is aware of changes to LCSH, and providing information on how to change display names and/or create local records. This group was formed in response to the recent LCSH revisions to Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. To join or ask questions, contact the chairs: Allison Bailund (abailund@sdsu.edu) and Rebecca Saunders (rlsaunders@email.wcu.edu)
• new journal issue: issue 210 of Catalogue & Index is focused on the themes of equality, diversity, and inclusion within metadata work. The contents include:
  • Cataloguing the Empire : Classification as Colonial Project / Gabriella P. Reyes
  • Cataloguing Buddhist Literature in English: Ethical Issues in an Assay / Lambert Tuffrey
  • Problematic Subject Headings: Making Our Catalogue More Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive at the University of Bristol / Liz Cooper and Damien McManus
  • Forming an Anti-Racist and Inclusive Library Catalogue at Cardiff University / Mouse Miller, Karen F. Pierce and Vicky Stallard
  • The Technical Side to Forming an Anti-Racist and Inclusive Library Catalogue at Cardiff University / Vicky Stallard, Karen F. Pierce and Mouse Miller [describing specific ways to display preferred terms in Alma]
  • Changing the Subject: The Homosaurus in Emory University’s Library Catalogue / Tara Kunesh and Jude Romines
  • Updating Subject Headings for Children’s Literature at the University of Strathclyde: the Children’s Theme Index / Andrew McAinsh
  • Narrowing the Diversity Gap: LGBTQ+ Zines, Metadata and Discovery at the University for the Creative Arts / Emma Hallett
  • The Cataloguing Code of Ethics Since 2021: What Next for Your Code? / Jane Daniels
• new recording: Critical Cataloging for Libraries, presented by Rhiannon Williams for The Library Corporation, including information about how to add local headings in TLC products such as Library•Solution
• new recording: Library of Congress Subject Heading Authority Work presented by Elissah Becknell, the first part of the free webinar series titled Engaging with Critical Cataloging Past and Present hosted by Minitex

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LC shenanigans follow-up from last month: The changes to the LCSH Mexico, Gulf of and Denali, Mount (Alaska) were implemented in mid-March, despite the many responses received opposing the revision.  If your library or consortium would like to implement local alternatives, possible alternatives would be to continue using the old LCSH locally, or using the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (Denali; Mexico, Gulf of).

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Upcoming:

• Tuesday April 1: Symposium on Reparative Description in Library Catalogs, hosted in person by the Michigan State University Libraries. The day-long event will include a keynote by Blaire Morseau, 1855 Professor of Great Lakes Anishinaabe Knowledge, Spiritualities, and Cultural Practices, and a presentation by Melissa Isaac and Anne Heidemann of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries
• Thursday April 10–Thursday May 22: free webinar series titled Engaging with Critical Cataloging Past and Present, presented by Minitex. Sessions include:
  • Thursday April 10: Voices of the Catalog: A Digital and Oral History of Hennepin County Catalogers with Amy Gabbert-Montag, Jaylene Telford, and Charlotte Kadifa
  • Thursday April 24: Working Together to Improve Disability and Medical Subject Headings with Violet Fox
  • Thursday May 8: Critical Cataloging and the American Library Association Subject Analysis Committee with Tina Gross
  • Thursday May 22: Reviving the Hennepin County Authority File with David Lesniaski
• Thursday April 10th: Jumpstart Inclusive Cataloging, a half-day online course hosted by Library Journal and School Library Journal. Presentations include:
  • The Past and Future of Inclusive Cataloging by Violet Fox
  • Indigenous Cataloging: Centering Indigenous Cultures, Communities, Collections by Ashley Edwards and Taya Jardine
  • Cataloging with Homosaurus: Advocating for LGBTQIA+ Resources and Discoverability by Jay L. Colbert, Chloe Noland, and Adrian Williams
  • Ideas to Action: Getting Started with Reparative Cataloging by Matthew Bright
  • Tools and Strategies for Auditing and Recataloging Nonfiction by Meghan O’Keefe
• Monday April 21st: ‘Change the Subject’ Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion hosted by the University of Minnesota Libraries. The panelists:
  • Aiden Bettine on Homosaurus terms and LGBTQ inclusive subject headings
  • Cathy Coats on retrospectively adding accessibility information for DVDs in the libraries’ collections
  • Lara Friedman-Shedlov on reparative description and addressing harmful language in archival materials
  • Tina Gross on subject headings and being part of the documentary
  • Natalie Holmes on cataloging Sámi materials
  • Amy Riegelman on advocating for a change to the term “Blacks” in the American Psychological Association’s Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms
• Tuesday May 6: book launch for Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create, edited by Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski
• Monday June 23: As part of SEI, the Summer Educational Institute, Treshani Perera will be presenting on Inclusive Description and Subjects for Cultural Heritage Materials
• 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

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

LC shenanigans alert: On Tuesday February 18, the Library of Congress sent an email announcement about a new list of LCSH revisions called list 2412a. This list contained 45 proposed revisions to LCSH relating to Trump’s executive orders to change “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America” and “Mount Denali” back to “Mount McKinley.” Although the list was backdated to February 13, 2025, no one was notified of its proposals until the morning of February 18th, and the deadline for submitting comments was the same day, February 18th. Usually LC provides 3 weeks of commenting time by the public, so this was an extraordinary move on LC’s part, not allowing much comment from the public (especially international colleagues).

The next morning, Wednesday February 19th, the PCC email list received an email from the LC Policy, Training & Cooperative Programs Division chief, Judith Cannan, saying, in full: “PTCP acknowledges the communications that the Library has received in response to tentative monthly list 12 LCSH 2 (list 2412a). The Library of Congress defers to the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) for place names contained within our controlled vocabularies and classification. For more information, please see our Subject Headings Manual sheet H 690 Formulating Geographic Headings and visit the BGN webpage.”

In other words, the changes to the LCSH Mexico, Gulf of and Denali, Mount (Alaska) will be going ahead, despite the many responses received opposing the revision. An upsetting change of procedure and a disappointing precedent for LC to set! If your library or consortium would like to implement local alternatives, now’s a great time to make those decisions. Possible alternatives would be to continue using the old LCSH locally, or using the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (Denali; Mexico, Gulf of).

National Archives shenanigans alert: the Appendix of Reparative Description Preferred Terms has been removed from the National Archives Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide. The appendix has been archived at the Wayback Machine.

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Upcoming:

• Monday March 3rd–Friday March 7th: ALA Core Interest Group Week, featuring 30 free virtual hour-long programs. Critcat-related sessions include:
  • Cataloging and Classification Research Interest Group, featuring “The Ethics Evolution: Catalogers’ Perspectives Over Time” by Karen Snow and Elizabeth Shoemaker, and “Exploring Systemic Gender Bias in Library of Congress Subject Headings: A Comprehensive Study” by Sungmin Park and Yuji Tosaka
  • Faceted Subject Access Interest Group, featuring “Faceted Subject Vocabularies Increase Representation of Marginalized Communities in Biomedical Research” by Mego Franks
  • Cataloging Norms Interest Group, featuring “Cataloging for Accessibility: An Inclusive Approach to Yiddish-language Collection Description” by Michelle Sigiel
• Tuesday March 4th: Repairing and Restoring Cultural Memory: The Library of Congress’s Ancestral Voices Initiative a Decade Later, part of Inclusive Collections, Inclusive Libraries, a RLUK (Research Libraries UK) virtual program. “Guha Shankar surveys an initiative of the US national library to collaborate with a Native American community and developers of cutting-edge digital technology to address critical issues in cultural representation, co-curation, intellectual access, knowledge repatriation and preservation”
• Monday March 10–Wednesday March 12: Code4Lib 2025. Critcat-relevant sessions include:
  • LC Subject Heading Remapping: Making Good on Good Intentions by Monique Rio
  • Enhancing MARC Language Metadata with Ruby and Indigenous Tenacity by Beck Davis
  • “Wait, Why Are We Doing This Again?” Cultural Humility Approaches to Metadata Remediation by Devon Murphy
• Thursday March 27–Thursday May 22: free webinar series titled Engaging with Critical Cataloging Past and Present, presented by Minitex. Sessions include:
  • Library of Congress Subject Heading Authority Work with Elissah Becknell
  • Voices of the Catalog: A Digital and Oral History of Hennepin County Catalogers with Amy Gabbert-Montag, Jaylene Telford, and Charlotte Kadifa
  • Working Together to Improve Disability and Medical Subject Headings with Violet Fox
  • Critical Cataloging and the American Library Association Subject Analysis Committee with Tina Gross
  • Reviving the Hennepin County Authority File with David Lesniaski
• Tuesday April 1: Symposium on Reparative Description in Library Catalogs, hosted in person by the Michigan State University Libraries. The day-long event will include a keynote by Blaire Morseau, 1855 Professor of Great Lakes Anishinaabe Knowledge, Spiritualities, and Cultural Practices, and a presentation by Melissa Isaac and Anne Heidemann of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Libraries
• Thursday April 10th: Jumpstart Inclusive Cataloging, a half-day online course hosted by Library Journal and School Library Journal
• Monday June 23: As part of SEI, the Summer Educational Institute, Treshani Perera will be presenting on Inclusive Description and Subjects for Cultural Heritage Materials

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 January 2025:

• New call for chapter proposals:  The Relationships of Description: Experiencing the Power & Politics of Language (book under contract with Routledge), edited by Jamie A. Lee, Gracen Brilmyer, Joyce Gabiola & Sandy Littletree. “We seek chapter proposals that offer deep reflections on description practices across libraries, archives, and museums. We especially seek submissions that draw on critical experiences, reflections, and interventions that draw on critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, trans theory, Indigenous studies, disability studies, and/or other critical perspectives. We encourage submissions from international perspectives—from within and beyond North America, including Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia.” Chapter proposals due February 1.
• New-ish 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 podcast episode: episode 277 of Circulating Ideas is titled Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches, featuring an interview with Billey Albina, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl, editors of the 2024 book Inclusive Cataloging
• New blog post: Naming Women in the Johnson Publishing Company Archive by Jacob Wolf, on the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Descriptive Notes blog. The blog’s editorial team is currently soliciting posts for a Inclusive Description series on inclusive and reparative projects and processes (and more) in archives and libraries.
• New scholarly article: Engaging the Space Between Minimal Processing and Inclusive Description to Create More Sustainable and Ethical Workflows by Alexandra deGraffenreid, published in The American Archivist
• New scholarly article: Archival Authority Records and the Potential of Human-centered Archival Description by Maristella Feustle, published in The American Archivist
• New scholarly article: Defining harmful content statements: cultural humility work that leads to institutional change and accountability by Challen R. Wright and Irina Rogova, published in the Journal of Documentation
• New scholarly article: Iniciativas de listas de encabezamientos de materia y tesauros para la equidad y la justicia social (Subject Headings Lists and Thesauri Initiatives for Equity and Social Justice) by Fabiola Rubim Silva and Paula Regina Dal’Evedove, published in Anales de Documentación
• New conference paper: Computational Approaches for Addressing Problematic Terminology in Museum Catalogues: A Knowledge Graph of Museum Critical Cataloguing Guidelines by Erin Canning, published in The Semantic Web: ESWC 2024 Satellite Events
• New scholarly article: Identifying Metadata Quality Issues Across Cultures by Julie Shi, Mike Nason, Marco Tullney, and Juan Pablo Alperin, published in College & Research Libraries. “Reviewing a sample of records, we identified and classified issues stemming from how metadata and communities press up against each other to intentionally reflect (or not) cultural meanings.”

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 2409 were approved in September 2024).

New LC headings of note on list 2409:

• new LCSH: Civilization–Israeli influences
• new LCSH: Covenant marriage
• new LCSH: Cultural rights
• revised LCSH: from Elgin marbles to Parthenon sculptures
• new LCSH: Erotic massage
• new LCSH: Israelization
• new LCSH: Political violence in popular culture
• new LCSH: Positionality (Sociology)
• new LCSH: Racial gerrymandering
• new LCSH: Right-wing extremists in popular culture
• new LCSH: Transgender prostitutes

Note:  LC announced at their January 2025 quarterly editorial meeting that they would reject the proposal to revise the subject heading to Gender critical feminism. The LCSH will remain Trans-exclusionary radical feminism. LC received over 300 emails/comments about this proposal.

Upcoming:

• Tuesday February 4th: “This Work is Urgent, This Work will Take Time”: Integrating DEIA into Resource Description Workflows, webinar hosted by NASIG, presented by Jennifer Browning and Kevin Burke at Carleton University Library
• Thursday February 6th: Machine Learning Approaches to Gender Bias in Archival Curation, part of Inclusive Collections, Inclusive Libraries, a RLUK (Research Libraries UK) virtual program. “Lucy Havens will report on research combining Machine Learning (ML) and human-centered research methods to identify gender biased language in archival catalogue metadata descriptions.”
• Friday February 7th: Library Association of the City University of New York hosts a LACUNY Cataloging Roundtable focused on “Metadata and Inclusion.” “The prompt for this roundtable is that each participant will deliver an informal, 5-10 minute presentation on one way in which metadata practices could be more inclusive. If you would like to participate, just email mdineiro@ccny.cuny.edu  and pmcgowan@bmcc.cuny.edu with your presentation topic.”
• Wednesday February 12th: virtual OCLC Cataloging Community Meeting, featuring Bri Watson and Chloe Misorski discussing the Best Practices for Queer Metadata
• Tuesday March 4th: Repairing and Restoring Cultural Memory: The Library of Congress’s Ancestral Voices Initiative a Decade Later, part of Inclusive Collections, Inclusive Libraries, a RLUK (Research Libraries UK) virtual program. “Guha Shankar surveys an initiative of the US national library to collaborate with a Native American community and developers of cutting-edge digital technology to address critical issues in cultural representation, co-curation, intellectual access, knowledge repatriation and preservation”
• Thursday April 10th: Jumpstart Inclusive Cataloging, a half-day online course hosted by Library Journal and School Library Journal

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 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