| dc.description.abstract | A major reason for the prevalence of harmful language in library catalogs is the hegemony of the Library of Congress. Recent threads in the AUTOCAT listserv show the resistance of catalogers to include their own voices, let alone the voices of marginalized groups that have been underrepresented in the profession, throwing their hands up and saying I’m just a cataloger, we have to follow the established rules, etc. At the same time, metadata staff have been cut from many university libraries, leaving those who are interested in doing metadata justice work overwhelmed. In order to address some of these challenges, Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) Collaborative Futures (a shared library platform group) created the Decolonizing Descriptions Implementation Working Group to manage harmful language across the Collaborative Futures partnership. As members of this group, we would like to discuss our efforts to manage alternative vocabularies in an Alma network zone environment, and some of the issues and crossroads we have faced thus far. Our current approach is to replace and/or amend LCSH terms with other, already established vocabularies like Manitoba Archival Information Network Indigenous Subject Headings, Saskatchewan Indigenous Subject Headings, Canadian Subject Headings, Canadiana, and Homosaurus, but this may evolve over time. We will present what our partner libraries have been working on individually and our working group’s efforts to centralize efforts and possibly implement a distributed labor model in OCUL CF. We are a nascent group and will be seeking feedback from colleagues. | |
