Reading or Video 

The Treatment of the American Indian in the Library of Congress E-F Schedule / Thomas Yen-Ran Yeh and Eugene T. Frosio

 

This historical reading from 1971 critiques the Library of Congress Classification system’s treatment of indigenous peoples, highlighting issues such as segregating American Indians from the United States, arranging American Indian history with bias, and representing American Indians as “savages.” Yeh offers proposals for improving the classification system, which is followed by comments and rebuttal from Frosio of the Library of Congress.

While the article offers interesting documentation of the long debate librarians and catalogers have had regarding ethical description and representation of indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups, it is definitely dated from a modern standpoint (for example, though it criticizes calling indigenous peoples “savages” and erasing their contemporary history and existence, the article also privileges problematic concepts like assimilation and United States government rule “civilizing” American Indians.

Yeh, Thomas Yen-Ran, and Eugene T. Frosio. 1971. “The Treatment of the American Indian in the Library of Congress.” Library Resources and Technical Services 15 (2): 122–31. http://archive.org/details/lrtsv15no2.
Model Project 

X̱wi7x̱wa Library: Indigenous Knowledge Organization

 

The University of British Columbia has created the Indigenous Knowledge Organization. The X̱wi7x̱wa Library strives to respect the First Nations-preferred names and spellings of nations. X̱wi7x̱wa is developing an authority list of First Nations Names. All X̱wi7x̱wa materials are catalogued on the UBC Library Catalogue.

“Indigenous Knowledge Organization | Xwi7xwa Library.” n.d. Accessed July 25, 2017. http://xwi7xwa.library.ubc.ca/collections/indigenous-knowledge-organization/.
Model Project 

Indigitization Toolkit: Toolkit for the Digitization of First Nations Knowledge

 

The purpose of the Indigitization Toolkit is to provide a reference document as well as a series of templates for BC First Nations communities interested in undertaking digitization projects. The Indigitization toolkit also fits into a broader goal to provide support to First Nations communities in the management of their information.

“Indigitization Toolkit | Indigitization.” n.d. Accessed August 22, 2018. http://www.indigitization.ca/indigitization-toolkit/.
Reading or Video 

Adapting the Brian Deer Classification System for Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute / Raegan Swanson

 

This case study examines Aanischaaukamikw Cree Culture Institute, a Cree museum and resource center in the Oujé-Bougoumou, Quebec, and the institute’s adaptation of the Brian Deer Classification System for use in their library. It gives an overview of the process of adapting Brian Deer for Quebec-focused classification in a small Aboriginal library, detailing the research, planning, testing, and implementation of the project. The value, merits, and disadvantages of adapting the Deer Classification System are addressed.

Swanson, Raegan. 2015. “Adapting the Brian Deer Classification System for Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 53 (5–6): 568–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2015.1009669.
Reading or Video 

“Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi”: A New Metadata Approach in the Third World with the eGranary Digital Library / Deborah Maron, Cliff Missen, and Jane Greenberg

 

Digital information can bridge age-old gaps in access to information in traditionally underserved areas of the world. However, for those unfamiliar with abundant e-resources, their early exposure to the digital world can be like “drinking from a fire hose.” For these audiences, abundant metadata and findability, along with easy-to-use interfaces, are key to their early success and adoption. To hasten the creation of metadata and user interfaces, the authors are experimenting with “crowd cataloging.” This report documents their work and Maron’s Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi metadata pyramid model guiding a developing metadata initiative being pursued with the eGranary Digital Library, the technology used by Widernet in a global effort to ameliorate information poverty. The Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi model, with principles adapted from technical design processes, aligns with research that has shown that community-based librarians are better poised to identify culturally congruent resources, but many require significant training in metadata concepts and skills. The model has students crowdsource “lo-fi” terms, which domain experts and information professionals can curate and cull in “hi-fi” to enhance findability of resources within the eGranary while simultaneously honing their own computer, information and metadata literacies. Though the focus here is on Africa, the findings and practices can be universalized to eGranaries around the globe, if successful.

Maron, Deborah, Cliff Missen, and Jane Greenberg. 2014. “‘Lo-Fi to Hi-Fi’: A New Metadata Approach in the Third World with the EGranary Digital Library.” International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, October, 37–42. http://dcpapers.dublincore.org/pubs/article/view/3713.
Reading or Video 

Dewey deracialized: A critical race-theoretic perspective / Jonathan Furner

 

Critical race theory is introduced as a potentially useful approach to the evaluation of bibliographic classification schemes. An overview is presented of the essential elements of critical race theory, including clarifications of the meanings of some important terms such as “race” and “social justice.” On the basis of a review of existing conceptions of the just and the antiracist library service, a rationale is presented for hypothesizing that critical race theory may be of use to the library and information sciences. The role of classification schemes as information institutions in their own right is established, and the Dewey Decimal Classification is introduced as the case to be studied. The challenges faced by classification-scheme designers in the construction and/or reconstruction of race-related categories are reviewed; and an analysis is presented of one sense in which it might be suggested that recent (2003) revisions in one of the DDC’s tables appear not to meet those challenges wholly successfully. An account is given of a further sense in which adoption of a critical race-theoretic approach has the more radical effect of calling into question a fundamental decision recently taken to “deracialize” the DDC. In conclusion, an assessment is made of critical race theory as a framework for evaluating library classification schemes.

Furner, Jonathan. 2007. “Dewey Deracialized: A Critical Race-Theoretic Perspective.” Knowledge Organization 34 (3). https://works.bepress.com/furner/14/.
Reading or Video 

Bias in subject access standards: A content analysis of the critical literature / Hope Olson and Rose Schlegl

 

This paper reports the results of a content analysis of the literature on biases in classification and subject headings. This study gathers 93 works documenting biases of gender, sexuality, race, age, ability, ethnicity, nationality, language, and religion with the goals of: 1) identifying existing research  and experience on subject access for marginalized groups and marginalized topics, and 2) providing a basis for addressing systemic subject access problems.

Olson, Hope, and Rose Schlegl. 1999. “Bias in Subject Access Standards: A Content Analysis of the Critical Literature.” In Information Science Where Has It Been, Where Is It Going? Canadian Association for Information Science. Sherbrooke, Canada: Canadian Association for Information Science. http://www.cais-acsi.ca/ojs/index.php/cais/article/viewFile/364/322.
Reading or Video 

Another Word for ‘Illegal Alien’ at the Library of Congress: Contentious / Jasmine Aguilera

 

Melissa Padilla joined with Dartmouth students at the Coalition for Immigration Reform, Equality and Dreamers, and they have spent more than two years petitioning the Library of Congress to remove “illegal alien” from its subject headings.

Aguilera, Jasmine. 2017. “Another Word for ‘Illegal Alien’ at the Library of Congress: Contentious.” New York Times, June 22, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/another-word-for-illegal-alien-at-the-library-of-congress-contentious.html.
Reading or Video 

Accidental Discovery, Intentional Inquiry: Leveraging Linked Data to Uncover the Women of Jazz / Christina Patuelli, Karen Hwang, Matthew Miller

 

In this article we discuss the heuristic capabilities that the process of generating, processing, and integrating cultural heritage linked data may afford, including its potential for enhancing arts and humanities research. More specifically, we report on our current work on detecting and assigning gender properties to person entities and semantically enriching a set of Linked Open Data (LOD) in the domain of history of jazz. Linked Jazz—-an ongoing project that experiments with the application of LOD principles and techniques to cultural heritage materials-—provided the context for this research. Linked Jazz aims to uncover meaningful connections between data and documents from digital archives of jazz history. It employs oral histories as the main source of named entities to be represented as linked data. The entities are then semantically connected and visualized as social graphs. Using the assignment of gender properties, this article describes how the data development process itself offers new and unanticipated paths of research inquiry and engagement with heritage data.

Pattuelli, M. Cristina, Karen Hwang, and Matthew Miller. 2017. “Accidental Discovery, Intentional Inquiry: Leveraging Linked Data to Uncover the Women of Jazz.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32 (4). https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqw047.
Reading or Video 

To Hell With Good Intentions: Linked Data, Community and the Power to Name / Mark A. Matienzo

 

Matienzo explores the argument that metadata, archiving, and linked data are never neutral; naming holds power and can reinforce problematic narratives about gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and more. He specifically challenges the myth about linked data as completely accessible and democratic; linked data can harm the communities which are mis- or under-represented, especially because corporations hold control over linked power and these communities cannot influence change. He offers several articles and projects as models for productive and ethical cultural heritage practices.

Keynote presented at the LITA Forum, Minneapolis, MN.

Matienzo, Mark A. 2015. “To Hell With Good Intentions: Linked Data, Community and the Power to Name.” In . Minneapolis, MN. http://matienzo.org/2016/to-hell-with-good-intentions/.