Decolonizing the Library of Congress
Perhaps the most ominous sign of the current ongoing cultural shift in America is what has been called Decolonizing the Catalog, which was described in the November 2021 American Libraries Magazine. The concept was covered in a webinar titled “Decolonizing the Catalog: Antiracist Description Practices from Authority Records to Discovery Layers” by the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association.
The general theme of this effort is to persuade libraries, including the Library of Congress (LC), to change the usage of key words in text summaries and subject headings in cataloging books, with the goal of ensuring that titles favored by the progressive left, such as The Bluest Eye (mentioned in Library Decolonization) by Toni Morrison are easier for searchers to locate than less preferred titles.
Since 2017, the leadership of ongoing programs surrounding the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) have focused their attention on advocating for more inclusive terminology in the LCSH. This effort purportedly gained steam after the death of George Floyd in 2020 and the riots that followed. As a result, “the concept of antiracism—or actively opposing racism and promoting tolerance and inclusion—gained traction in critical conversations about library work.”
Some of the complaints that surfaced in the webinar are revealing. For example, one panelist bemoaned the fact that the LCSH “is a very old vocabulary that dates back to the late 19th century, and the terms in LCSH are interconnected. In order to change Blacks to Black people and whites to white people, you need to revisit every heading that includes the word Blacks or whites. So it’s not just a matter of changing one thing but changing many things and convincing LC that it is worthwhile to make those changes.”
A wholesale shift in library cataloging, starting with the nation’s premier library, appears to be the goal and it is clear that more recent works, especially those of progressive activists, will be prominently listed in search results.
Webinar panelists described how they have worked to persuade the LC to change headings to make it easier for searchers to find books on “racism against Black people” as opposed to books on “racism” in general. Another proposal calls for changing the historical term “slave hiring” to eliminate the term “slave” and “instead use more inclusive language to describe this concept.” The panelists complained that “LCSH tends to use the language that is commonly used in the literature.” Yet another example of a change they want made is to overlay what they called “the anti-immigrant” term “illegal aliens” with their preferred term “undocumented immigrants.”
One panelist discussed a process whereby activists in universities and other institutions can submit for “remapping” terms or headings they don’t like but which are being used in their library catalogs, and can suggest terminology they think should replace it. “People submit headings they’d like to remap through a simple Google form,” she explained. “The only required field is the problematic term they think should be overlaid, but we also asked for suggestions on what term to use instead, sources for the suggested term, contact information, and comments. Submissions from the Google form populate a spreadsheet the metadata team uses to review proposals ... ”
These activists say their next step “is to consider how to increase the transparency and visibility” of their projects. Conservatives might hope that such transparency will shed light on their true intent to further erase American history in particular, and Western civilization in general, by making classics and older works harder to find, and install in their place today’s oppressive, Orwellian view of the world.
Want to be notified of new Education Reporter content?
Your information will NOT be sold or shared and will ONLY be used to notify you of new content.
Click Here
Return to Home Page