What's Gender Got to Do with It? A Critique of RDA 9.7

Abstract

The Library of Congress (LC) and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) interpretation of Resource Description and Access (RDA) 9.7 regarding gender when identifying persons reinforces regressive conceptions of gender identity. The rule instructs catalogers to record gender when identifying persons, and although RDA gives catalogers the flexibility to record more than two gender labels, LC limits Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO) catalogers to a binary label: male, female, or not known. In this article, the authors challenge gender as a descriptive attribute for personal names, critique how LC is instructing NACO catalogers to record elements about gender, and make recommendations to address describing persons in LC authority records.

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

“…Lember et al (2013) touch upon radical cataloging and zine libraries as well as gender discrimination and heteronormativity in LCSH. Billey, Drabinski, and Roberto's (2014) analysis of RDA rule 9.7, which requires the recording of an author's gender using binary labels (male, female, or not known) when cataloging a work, contests the necessity of including gender as a descriptive attribute in authority records and recommends that the rule and section in question be withdrawn.…”

Toward a value‐analytic approach to information standards

“…Though Zyrus's gender is not specified in the current library authority record, under RDA, gender and gender history may also be recorded. The inclusion of gender in RDA data has been criticized for removing an individual's choice for disclosure, compromising autonomy, and violating privacy (Billey, Drabinski, & Roberto, 2014), showing the potential for further value violations here.…”

Connecting Information Literacy and Social Justice: Why and How

“…They also highlight that subdividing subject terms by race reinforces the notion of whiteness as normative. Similarly, by offering only the binary choice of male and female, the Library of Congress Subject Headings do not allow for more fluid definitions of gender (Billey, Drabinski, & Roberto, 2014). Research also suggests that some librarians engage in discriminatory practices in reference interactions, including refusing to answer questions about homosexuality (Curry, 2005), and engaging in lower levels of customer service with patrons perceived to have ethnic-…”