This presentation was provided by Brian M. Watson of The University of British Columbia School of Information, during the NISO workshop "Metadata for DEIA," which was held on October 4, 2021.
7. WEB3CH2A2MS
× Originally WEBCHAM from Hope
Olson’s naming of the default and
assumed universal center of cataloging
and classification systems.
× Expanded by Michelle Caswell to
include “cis” and “citizen” at the
encouragement of Marika Cifor.
× Here expanded by me to include settler
status, relationship and romantic
orientations.
Olson, “Patriarchal Structures of Subject Access and
Subversive Techniques for Change,” 4;
× Caswell, “Dusting for Fingerprints: Introducing Feminist
Standpoint Appraisal,” 7.
White
European
Bourgeois
Christian
Cisgender
Citizen
Heterosexual
Able-bodied
Allosexual
Monogamous
Men
Settlers
7
8. recommendations towards equity
× 1. the use of multiple or alternative vocabularies or
classifications, where available
× 2. the practice of “cultural competency” when
considering historic identities, items, or groups
× 3. the use of “ethical outreach” when dealing with still-
living identities, items, or groups
× 4. “trickster” practices of “alteration,” “subversion,”
“extension,” or replacement of dominant classification
or cataloging on a local level
× 5. consultation with described subjects
8
sources & further reading:
www.critcat.org
9. recommendations towards equity
× 1. the use of multiple or alternative vocabularies or
classifications, where available
× 2. the practice of “cultural competency” when
considering historic identities, items, or groups
× 3. the use of “ethical outreach” when dealing with still-
living identities, items, or groups
× 4. “trickster” practices of “alteration,” “subversion,”
“extension,” or replacement of dominant classification
or cataloging on a local level
× 5. consultation with described subjects
9
sources & further reading:
www.critcat.org
10. narrower terms:
MULTIPLE AND/OR
ALTERNATIVE VOCABS
The Homosaurus, an international
linked data vocabulary of queer
terminology. (homosaurus.org/v3)
CONSULTATION WITH
DESCRIBED SUBJECTS
Name Change Policy Working Group
(NCPWG; ncpwg.org)
10
11. 1. homoit
the use of multiple or alternative vocabularies
or classifications, where available
11
12. homoit
developed today by int’l
queer community & rooted
in a long history
wider & wider use: preliminary
data shows HomoIT in the
cataloging, classification, or
description of (at minimum) 7.7
million items in 33 institutions
across 11 countries.
12
1997: IHLIA
2013: Version
1, but offline!
2015: v1, but
linked!
2016:
Editorial
Board
2019: v2
Released
2021: v3
Released
with
deferences
14. Name Change Policy Working Group
× Founded to encourage the amendment or updating of
publisher name change policies for authors harmed
from publisher policies.
× So far, publishers of 12,220 journals have introduced
these policies
× $13bn+ worth of revenue
× 40k+ employees.
14
ncpwg
Good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are or however you are. Before even beginning: I am speaking you from Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish, all of whom had traditional, ancestral, and unceeded land occupied and taken—often violently—by the so-called settler nation of Canada on Turtle Island. I am a descendant of Scots-Irish and English settlers, and I am an uninvited guest on this land, and, as such, am a beneficiary of colonialism and genocide. Canada & the United States continue this genocide today through pollution, criminal neglect, cultural extermination, and murder. I aim to learn and do what I am able to support the nations and peoples upon whose land I work upon and live with. I invite you to to learn and reflect, and take action. Feel free to share where you are joining from. If you are unfamiliar, Native-land.ca is a good resource for this.
Hi everyone. my name is Bri, although I publish under Brian M. Watson so you might have seen me under that name as well. I am a second year phd student at University of British Columbia iSchool
I am neurodivergent, disabled, queer and nonbinary and can claim additional romantic and sexual minoritizations. Resultingly I am very, very aware of the systems that mislabel people and their communities. Yet, I've had a lot of privilege. As I've already said I'm a beneficiary of colonialism, but I was raised as a lower middle class cishet white boy who was taught ways to hide their disabilities and oddities in order to "pass." And that privilege has protected me others would not have been—my whiteness especially. The ways I was raised placed me at the center of systems designed to uphold me But as I grew older and changed and learned I began to fall further and further from the center.
But If you have any experience with library catalogs, I don’t think you need to see an extensive bibliography to understand the subject headings have been and are problematic – racist, sexist, classist, colonialist, and ableist.
I just habe one question:
Whose and what stories are we telling? Usually, this conversation now turns to one about ethics, how we can ethically describe and catalog. and we have a lot of those articles in library and information science.
The overwhelming majority of this literature is rooted in (and dependent upon) the Western European and American philosophical tradition of ethics. This tradition is descended from the Ancient Greek Aristotelian “virtue” ethics and according to one philosopher “almost any modern version still shows” its neo-Aristotelian nature.
So really, whose & what histories are we describing?
Usually, now this conversation turns to one about ethics, how we can ethically describe and catalog. We have a ton of this in the library and information science literature. The overwhelming majority of this literature is rooted in (and dependent upon) the Western European and American philosophical tradition of ethics. This tradition is descended from the Ancient Greek Aristotelian “virtue” ethics and according to one philosopher “almost any modern version still shows” its neo-Aristotelian nature.
Why does this matter? Well
Why does this matter? SLIDE ADVANCE.
knowledge organization rooted wholly in a philosophy advocated, promulgated & sponsored by WEB3CH2A2MS is not desirable, possible, or sustainable.
We as a profession are great at gathering information, planning, analyzing, talking—but talking
If you are not familiar with WEB3CH2A2MS, it is a term descended from Hope Olson’s work to describe the default and assumed universal center of cataloging and classification systems:
White European Bourgeois Christian Cisgender Citizen Heterosexual Able-bodied Allosexual Monogamous Men Settlers
This is a deliberate flipping of the
Anyhow, as I said, there is a lot of literature coverin
But in doing this work we must privilege the language of communities whose stuff we have. To be clear, stolen stuff should be returned; but if it not or cannot be, then we should approach them with the respect possible to it. We should question the subjects, both the subjects applied and the communities subjected to description. When we apply a label to someone is it right? Is it accurate? Personal identity terms are not neutral, bias-free scientific terminology. They describe our innermost desires and highest outward goals.
We need to revise, revisit, and redescribe both our collections, but also the vocabulary we use to label things within it. That’s nothing new. The work of critical cataloguers today originates out of the work of early 20th century librarians such as Frances Lydia Yocom and Dorothy B Porter - both fascinating and really impactful women. If you don’t know about them, I really recommend reading more into them. But we should also draw on all of the vocabularies available to us as well as the whole new world of linked data technology that allows us to describe stuff in different ways at the same time.
But when we do this work, we must privilege the language of communities whose stuff we have. To be clearer, stolen stuff should be returned, but if it’s not stolen or cannot be returned, then we should approach the communities with the respect possible to it – and we should also describe the things that we have of theirs with the respect due to it. We should question the subjects - both subjects applied and to the community subjected to description. When we apply a label to someone, it is not – is it right? Is it accurate? Personal identity terms are not neutral bias-free terminology
the use of multiple or alternative vocabularies or classifications, where available
The Homosaurus was originally created in 1997 by IHLIA LGBT Heritage as a Dutch and English gay and lesbian thesaurus that was used as a standalone vocabulary to describe their collections. Over time, terms relating to bisexuality, trans, gender, and intersex concepts were added, but not methodically. This original version of the vocabulary (which we refer to as version 0) had an overly flat structure and, due to the lack of connections, terms were too isolated from one another and therefore easily missed. But, it became apparent that a vocabulary developed by an LGBTQ archives to describe LGBTQ resources could be a powerful tool.
In 2013, Jack van der Wel, with the help of Ellen Greenblatt, transformed the original Homosaurus into a more inclusive and hierarchical thesaurus (version 1). Hundreds of terms were added and each term was put in relation to others in a hierarchical structure. At this point, the vocabulary only existed as an offline document that was circulated as a Word document or PDF. The results of this major editing project were presented at numerous LGBTQ ALMS Conferences and the vocabulary began to be used by other LGBTQ archives, libraries, and documentation centres throughout the world.
In 2015, the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) became one of the handful of LGBTQ archives using version 1 of the Homosaurus to describe resources in their collections. When it became apparent to the DTA’s Director, K.J. Rawson, how useful the vocabulary was and how many institutions could benefit from using it, he collaborated with Jack van der Wel to transform version 1 into an online linked data vocabulary. This dramatically increased the accessibility of the vocabulary and allowed cultural institutions from around the world to link to a common vocabulary.
In 2016, Rawson and van der Wel then established an Editorial Board to oversee a second major revision of the Homosaurus. The board ultimately decided to transform the Homosaurus from a broader, standalone vocabulary (which included hundreds of non-LGBTQ terms, e.g., “advertising” and “literature”) to a narrower, LGBTQ-specific vocabulary that was intended to supplement existing thesauri (primarily the Library of Congress Subject Headings). This was a major conceptual shift and this revision resulted in version 2, which is the current version of the vocabulary.
In May, 2019, version 2 of the Homosaurus was released at www.homosaurus.org as a linked data vocabulary. The Editorial Board is now focused on publicizing the project and making ongoing edits to the vocabulary
Second recommendation: consultation with described subjects
The Trans Metadata Collective is a group of dozens of cataloguers, librarians, archivists, scholars, and information professionals with a concerted interest in improving the description and classification of trans, non-binary, Two Spirit, and other gender nonconforming people in GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums). The Collective’s primary goal is to develop a set of best practices for the description and classification of gender nonconforming information resources.