SECTION C: [OPTIONAL] The resources in this section are related to this week's learning but are not required reading. Review as time allows.
*Disrupting Nonfiction Part 1: Traditional. *Disrupting Nonfiction Part 2: Active. *Disrupting Nonfiction Part 3: Narrative. *Disrupting Nonfiction Part 4: Expository Literature. *Disrupting Nonfiction Part 5: Browsable.
The Eisner Award. Stratford library taking steps to update offensive colonial language in its catalogue. The Racist Problem with Library Subject Classifications – HLS. This month, I was inspired by my fellow HLS contributors, Lauren, Aubrey, Kerri, Alyssa, and Conrrado, to attempt to critically examine the ways in which anti-Black racism and other prejudices intersect with librarianship.
If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to check out their posts this month, as they raise excellent points about intersectionality, allyship, and racism in libraries. In reflecting on what I wanted to write about this month, I recalled a conversation had in my information infrastructures course last semester. During a unit on cataloging, we discussed the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and how wildly inappropriate many of them are. The bias hiding in your library. For many years, the Library of Congress categorized many of its books under a controversial subject heading: “Illegal aliens.”
But then, on March 22, 2016, the library made a momentous decision, announcing that it was canceling the subject heading “Illegal aliens” in favor of “Noncitizens” and “Unauthorized immigration.” However, the decision was overturned a few months later, when the House of Representatives ordered the library to continue using the term “illegal alien.” They said they decided this in order to duplicate the language of federal laws written by Congress. This was the first time Congress ever intervened over a Library of Congress subject heading change. Even though many librarians and the American Library Association opposed Congress’s decision, “Illegal aliens” remains the authorized subject heading today. Library of Congress Drops Illegal Alien Subject Heading, Provokes Backlash Legislation. Update: On June 10 the House voted 237–170 to order LC to continue using the term “illegal alien,” in order to duplicate the language of federal laws written by Congress.
Thanks to the joint efforts of a student group and university librarians at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, with a push from the American Library Association (ALA), the Library of Congress (LC) announced on March 22 that it would remove the term “Illegal alien” from the LC Subject Heading (LCSH) system, replacing it with “Noncitizen” and, to describe the act of residing without authorization, “Unauthorized immigration.” Per LC's executive summary, the proposed change will be posted on a "Tentative List" for comments "not earlier than May, 2016. " Teaching the Radical Catalog.