Questioning Authority

Abstract

When a library adds a book to its collection, it adds a surrogate record for that book in the library's catalog. To get this record the library will either download it or create a record for the book from an international bibliographic record database. Authors have records too. These are known as name authority records. Recently the standards for creating these records changed to allow library catalogers to record more personal information about authors in authority records. This includes information about gender. There began a collective effort by a handful of catalogers to revise the new instructions so that binary gender was not encoded into the metadata of library records. This paper outlines the developments, results, and implications of this work.

“Our Metadata, Ourselves”: The Trans Metadata Collective

“…That so many authority records contained sensitive information that did not come from the authors themselves verified Thompson's concern that authority records may unwittingly — and unacceptably — expose the authors in ways the authors never intended. This issue has been also explored by others who demonstrate that including gender identity in authority records is not necessary for bibliographic purposes (Billey, 2019; Billey et al, 2014, 2016; Billey & Drabinski, 2019).…”

“…Within academic, informational, and professional contexts, many experience a form of personal trauma connected to their pre-transition identities that makes them especially vulnerable (Tanenbaum et al, 2021). Trans and gender diverse people can also be misnamed or misgendered in metadata, which runs the risk of outing them and putting them at gender (Billey, 2019(Billey, , 2022Billey et al, 2014Billey et al, , 2016Billey & Drabinski, 2019) collection of gender information for artist records (Harpring, 2023) represent two of many methods by which sensitive information about trans and gender diverse people can be improperly shared.…”

“…Trans and gender diverse people can also be misnamed or misgendered in metadata, which runs the risk of outing them and putting them at risk of harm or violence. For example, Resource Description and Access (RDA)'s requirement for recording creator gender (Billey, 2019, 2022; Billey et al, 2014, 2016; Billey & Drabinski, 2019) and the Getty Vocabularies' collection of gender information for artist records (Harpring, 2023) represent two of many methods by which sensitive information about trans and gender diverse people can be improperly shared.…”

100 Years of marginalization

“…Researchers such as Melissa Adler (2009;2016;2017;Adler and Tennis 2013;Adler, Huber, andNix 2017), Ellen Greenblatt (1990a;1990b;, K.R. Roberto (2008;, Amber Billey and Emily Drabinski (Billey, Drabinski, and Roberto 2014;Billey 2019;Billey and Drabinski 2019) and many others have discussed queer topics, and Christine Bone (Bone et al 2015;Bone and Lougheed 2018), Sandra Littletree, Miranda Belarde-Lewis and Marisa Duarte (Littletree and Metoyer 2015;Littletree, Belarde-Lewis, and Duarte 2020;Duarte and Belarde-Lewis 2015) and many others have discussed Indigenous topics. These authors have thoroughly illustrated the fallacies, inconsistencies, failures, mistakes, and incorrect information contained in LCSH.…”