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.