Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction

Abstract

Critiques of hegemonic library classification structures and controlled vocabularies have a rich history in information studies. This project has pointed out the trouble with classification and cataloging decisions that are framed as objective and neutral but are always ideological and worked to correct bias in library structures. Viewing knowledge organization systems from a queer perspective, however, challenges the idea that classification and subject language can ever be finally corrected. Engaging queer theory and library classification and cataloging together requires new ways of thinking about how to be ethically and politically engaged on behalf of marginal knowledge formations and identities who quite reasonably expect to be able to locate themselves in the library. Queer theory invites a shift in responsibility from catalogers, positioned to offer functional solutions, to public services librarians, who can teach patrons to dialogically engage the catalog as a complex and biased text, just as critical catalogers do. L ibraries are spaces where language really matters. Most of what we hold on our shelves and in our electronic databases are collections of words: books, journal articles, pamphlets, and ephemeral material, such as zines. Libraries are also spaces of control, and not just controls about noise and food and when books are due. The materials themselves are linguistically controlled, corralled in classification structures that fix items in place, and they are described using controlled vocabularies that reduce and universalize language, remarkably resistant to change. In terms of organization and access, libraries are sites constructed by the disciplinary power of language. Librarians of all kinds-conducting research in library and information studies ðLISÞ programs, working in technical services, serving at the reference desk, and teaching in the information literacy classroom-work within and against these linguistic structures: we build and extend them, and we teach users how to navigate them. Critiques of these disciplinary library structures of classification and controlled vocabularies have a rich history in information studies, one that can be roughly dated to the late 1960s and early 1970s ðGilyard 1999Þ. Sanford Berman, a US librarian working at the University of Zambia, found that his Zambian users had a very different relation to the term "Kafirs"

A Decade of Critical Information Literacy: A Review of the Literature

“…It should be noted that information literacy and library instruction are not the only subjects of critical examination in libraries. A small selection of works outside the higher education information literacy sphere includes two volumes edited by Gloria Leckie and John Buschman; one collection of essays applies a wide range of theorists' work to LIS and concepts central to the field (2010), and one analyzes the assumptions behind and use of information technology in librarianship (2009) Drabinski (2013) encourages a shift in responsibility from catalogers to public services librarians, who are experienced in engaging students dialogically. Lember et al (2013) touch upon radical cataloging and zine libraries as well as gender discrimination and heteronormativity in LCSH.…”

How are Cookbooks Classified in Libraries? An Examination of LCSH and LCC

“…This is the first research project that looks at cooking subject headings and classification numbers in LCSH and LCC. There have been several studies about how LCSH and LCC treat a variety of subjects, and current studies include Christensen (2008), Drabinski (2013), and Julien et al (2012).…”

Connecting Information Literacy and Social Justice: Why and How

“…He points out that even programs and services that are usually lauded as exemplary of the library's mission of egalitarianism, such as immigration and citizenship services, could be seen as assimilationist and promoting a white European culture, even while, historically, many people including African-Americans were not even allowed to use the library. Drabinski (2013) and Drabinksi and Hann (2009) expose numerous issues with library collections and cataloging practices. They note that hierarchical classification systems like Library of Congress and Dewey suggest relationships among subject terms, placing homosexuality in relation to sexual deviance and women within the larger contexts of marriage and family.…”