LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADING ILLEGAL ALIENS DISCUSSION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADING ILLEGAL ALIENS DISCUSSION FOR THE LIBRARY DIVERSITY COMMITTEE SCREENING OF CHANGE THE SUBJECT NOVEMBER 22, 2019 JULIE RENEE MOORE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CATALOG LIBRARIAN HENRY MADDEN LIBRARY CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO
Acknowledgments I would like to thank… • Luiz Mendes, Cataloging Coordinator, Oviatt Library, California State University Northridge • Israel Yanez, University Library, Sacramento State • Members of the ULMS Resource Management Functional Committee • Tina Gross, Catalog Librarian, St. Cloud State University • Violet Fox, Dewey Editor, OCLC Yanez, Israel and Luiz Mendes. LCSH “Illegal Aliens” Options to Solve a Terminology Problem for the Consortium, CSU Technical Services Open Forum, October 10, 2019.
Library of Congress plays a dual role: 1) Library of Congress and 2) as our de facto national library Most libraries throughout the United States (and internationally) use the bibliographic records created by the Library of Congress and follow the Library of Congress standards, including the Library of Congress Subject Headings (as well as other standards). This consistency allows us to share our bibliographic records around the world.
Why Use Subject Headings? Subject headings come from a set of controlled vocabulary that can help us standardize the terms we use for the same meaning. Subject headings tell us what this thing that we are cataloging is about. It helps us to gather like materials. Different spellings and different terminology are all used to refer to the same thing, and that means without LCSH people would not find resources that they would want to find. But language also changes over time. What was viewed as a clear term back when a term was authorized can be viewed as offensive years later. And the people who create these terms are not perfect, and they also come with their own biases.
Background Library of Congress to Cancel the Subject Heading “Illegal Aliens” (March 22, 2016) https: //www. loc. gov/catdir/cpso/illegal-aliens-decision. pdf In response to constituent requests, the Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress, which maintains Library of Congress Subject Headings, has investigated the possibility of cancelling or revising the heading Illegal aliens. PSD also explored the possibility of revising the broader term Aliens. It concluded that the meaning of Aliens is often misunderstood and should be revised to Noncitizens, and that the phrase illegal aliens has become pejorative. The heading Illegal aliens will therefore be cancelled and replaced by two headings, Noncitizens and Unauthorized immigration, which may be assigned together to describe resources about people who illegally reside in a country.
Background Tina Gross, SAC Working Group Report from the SAC Working Group on the LCSH “Illegal aliens” (July 13, 2016) http: //hdl. handle. net/11213/9261 This report concurs with the Library of Congress decision to change the subject heading Aliens to Noncitizens, but recommends that Illegal aliens be replaced with Undocumented immigrants where appropriate. In cases where the subject heading Illegal aliens has been assigned to works about nonimmigrants, more specific terms should be assigned.
Background House of Representatives Overturned the Decision, Ordering the Library of Congress to Continue Using the Subject Heading “Illegal Aliens” (May 17, 2016) The decision was overturned a few months later by the House of Representatives, which ordered the Library of Congress to continue to use the term “Illegal aliens. ” They said that they wanted to leave the verbiage alone, because those words are used in federal laws written by Congress. Those that were for the change lost by a narrow margin, 2425. This was the first time in history that Congress has ever interfered with a Library of Congress subject heading change.
According to Violet Fox (Chair, SAC Working Group on Alternatives to LCSH “Illegal Aliens”) … In June 2019, a group of ALA people met with LC employees. (ALA Annual was in Washington, DC in 2019. ) LC employees reported that they could not move forward with changing the subject heading because of instructions from Congress. Long story short: LC is not moving forward with making this change in this political climate, so ALA is encouraging libraries to make this change individually.
Cataloging Guiding Assumptions for our ULMS (Unified Library Management System) for all 23 Campuses of the CSU • We do our cataloging through OCLC, this huge repository of bibliographic records (as of September, there were 464, 422, 890 bibliographic records in OCLC. ) • We aspire to synchronize all our bibliographic records with the OCLC master record; • We capitalize on the efficiencies of working in a shared file of bibliographic records, and we all use the same standards for consistency …as such To delete and/or replace bibliographic data from the OCLC master record is not a viable option in our current environment of working in shared files of records.
Our Recommendation for the ULMS Follow the recommendations by the SAC Working Group by using Noncitizens and Undocumented immigrants as alternative subjects to Aliens and Illegal aliens. Some examples: • Aliens Noncitizens • Illegal Aliens Undocumented immigrants • Alien detention centers Immigrant detention centers • Children of illegal aliens Children of undocumented immigrants • Illegal alien children Undocumented immigrant children • Illegal aliens in literature Undocumented immigrants in literature • Women illegal aliens Women undocumented immigrants
Right now, “Illegal aliens” is still used as a subject heading in our catalog. We are hoping that in the beginning of the new year, that subject heading will be replaced by the Undocumented immigrants subject heading for the public view … if it gets passed.
Language Changes! LC catalogers add 5, 000 new subject headings to the LC subject authority file each year. New topics are written about every year. Language changes, and they work very hard to keep the subjects current. Electronic calculating machines Computers
Do You Ever Wish to See Some Other Subject Headings? If you are interested in pursuing more change in other subject headings, you can always go to the Cataloging Lab, a wiki where people collaborate to propose changes to LCSH, even if they are not catalogers.
Julie Moore jumoore@csufresno. edu Images from Creative
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