The ALA Task Force on Gay Liberation: Effecting Change in Naming and Classification of GLBTQ Subjects

The American Library Association’s Task Force on Gay Liberation was the first professional organization in the U.S. to formally organize to protect rights and promote awareness of gays and lesbians. Founded in 1970, the Task Force has evolved to become the Gay Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table (GLBTRT) of the A.L.A. In this paper I will discuss the influence of key members of the group, such as Barbara Gittings, Steve Wolf, Joan Marshall,and Michael McConnell, on Library of Congress classifications and subject headings.I will also discuss how the success and momentum of this agenda depended on the efforts of Sanford Berman, who advised the Task Force and pushed for revisions of gay and lesbian subject headings and classifications.This study significantly informs current classification research, as it documents the beginning of a movement to democratize subject cataloging practices. The actions taken by the Task Force and its individual members broke new ground, and arguably, led to present-day participatory, user-centered classification practices, such as social tagging

Books and Imaginary Being(s): The Monstrosity of Library Classifications

Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library and its classified catalog to the Library of Congress after the original library was burned in the War of 1812. He viewed the act of submitting his collection to the U.S. Congress as a means to inscribe his legacy and political agenda into the intellectual and cultural realm of the nation. Jorge Luis Borges was both a municipal librarian and the Librarian for the National Library of Argentina, as well as a prolific fiction and poetry writer. Borges’s fictions are a kind of catalogue in and of themselves, in which all books, all ideas, and all authors are cited, recited, ordered, and disordered. We put Jefferson into dialogue with Borges—each of whom we might regard as national librarians—to show how knowledge organization techniques frame and inform national and colonial imaginaries, and how monsters are produced in and by library collections and classifications

Toward a Taxonomy of Harm

When we organize knowledge we act. The wholesomeness of our actions can be measured in the proportion of good or harm they do. How then do we identify and define potential harm in knowledge organization systems? A starting point for contributing to the greater good is to examine and interrogate existing knowledge organization practices that do harm, whether that harm is intentional or accidental, or an inherent and unavoidable evil. As part of the transition movement, the authors propose that we take inventory of the manifestations and implications of the production of suffering by knowledge organization systems through constructing a taxonomy of harm. The aim of our work is (1) to heighten awareness of the violence that classifications and naming practices carry, (2) to unearth some of the social conditions and motivations that contribute to and are reinforced by knowledge organization systems, and (3) to advocate for intentional and ethical knowledge organization practices to achieve a minimal level of harm

Classification Along the Color Line: Excavating Racism in the Stacks

This paper contends that systemic violence is fundamentally a classification problem. The interrogation of the production of racialized library subjects in relation to one another and in relation to political and social conditions may shed light on the intensely complex problems of racism in the United States today. I discuss the ways that sections of library classifications were constructed based on ideas about African Americans in relation to American social and political agendas. My claim is that the structures that were written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are deeply embedded in our libraries and have participated in the naturalization of certain racialized assumptions and associations. In the 21st century we continue to maintain, apply, and refine a flawed structure. My aim is to provide a window into how epistemic violence affects American consciousness about race by revealing some of the ways that our library classifications have been woven together by a group of men who cited and informed one another and ultimately, organized and universalized American history. These classifications are structured around assertions about timeless and fixed national values constructed out of progressive conceptualizations of the nation and its citizenry. A reliance on racial exclusion was necessary for this grand narrative, and scientific theories and classifications provided legitimacy and fuel for racist programs. One of key ways that exclusion was legitimated and supported was through the application of evolutionary theory and principles. Social engineering, white supremacy, and conquest were justified and propelled by beliefs in the evolutionary superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is not by accident that these ideas became foundational to classificatory practice in libraries. In fact, Thomas Dousa has drawn attention to the intellectual climate in which late 19th century library classificationists worked - particularly, the theories and classifications of the sciences and nature as devised by Auguste Compte, Herbert Spencer, and Charles Darwin - and argues that these ideas and systems inspired the introduction of evolutionary principles into bibliographic classifications.[i] The present paper is in agreement with Dousa's claim and argues that such a conclusion carries critical implications for understanding libraries' classifications of race and ethnicity. Emphasis is placed is on the legacy of the classification of books about people of African descent as variously named and conceptualized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The last section of the paper examines the classifications as performatives to examine some of the processes by which racism has become systemic on library shelves. [i] Thomas M. Dousa, "Evolutionary Order in the Classification Theories of CA Cutter and EC Richardson: Its Nature and Limits." NASKO 2, no. 1 (2011): 76

Race and Ethnicity in Classification Systems: Teaching Knowledge Organization from a Social Justice Perspective

Classification and the organization of information are directly connected to issues surrounding social justice, diversity, and inclusion. This paper is written from the standpoint that political and epistemological aspects of knowledge organization are fundamental to research and practice and suggests ways to integrate social justice and diversity issues into courses on the organization of information

High Risk Human Papillomavirus Persistence Among HIV-infected Young Women in South Africa

SummaryObjectivesPersistence of infection with high-risk Human papillomaviruses (HR-HPV) increases the risk of incident and progressive precancerous lesions of the cervix. Rates of HR-HPV persistence have been shown to be increased among HIV-infected adult women, however there is a paucity of literature addressing HPV persistence in the young HIV-infected population. We compared rates of HR-HPV persistence between HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected young women.MethodsWe obtained self-collected vaginal swabs at six-month intervals from 50 HIV-uninfected and 33 HIV-infected young women recruited through a community youth center (age 17-21 years) and compared rates of HR-HPV persistence. HR-HPV testing was conducted using the Roche's Linear Array® HPV Test.ResultsEighty-three prevalent (upon baseline testing) and incident (upon subsequent testing) individual HR-HPV infections were identified among 43 members of the cohort (23 HIV-uninfected and 20 HIV-infected). At twelve months, 19% of baseline HR-HPV infections continued to be present with a statistically significant difference between HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected participants (4% versus 31%; p=0.01).ConclusionsHIV-infected young women in our cohort had a seven-fold increased rate of persistence of HR-HPV overall at 12 months, indicating an increased risk for incident and progressive precancerous lesions. Identification of persistent infection with HR-HPV may complement cytological findings in determining the need for colposcopy