This presentation was provided by Erin Leach of the University of Georgia during the NISO Webinar, Can There Be Neutrality in Cataloging? A Conversation Starter, held on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.

1. POWER, CORRUPTION,& LIES:
BIAS & NEUTRALITY IN
METADATA CREATION
Erin Leach
Special Collections Cataloging Librarian
University of Georgia Libraries

2. My heroes, mentors, & influences
Maria Accardi, Jacob Berg, Amber Billey, Max Bowman, Hannah
Buckland, Anastasia Chiu, J.L. Colbert, Anna Creech, Emily Drabinski,
Fobazi Ettarh, Ethan Fenichel, Rachel Fleming, Angela Galvan, Netanel
Ganin, Christina Harlow, April Hathcock, Derrick Jefferson, Donna
Lanclos, Shana McDanold, Michelle Millet, Hope A. Olson, K.R. Roberto,
K.G. Schneider, Jessica Schomberg, Maura Smale, Madison Sullivan,
Donna Witek, Becky Yoose
…and many others!

3. Can there be neutrality in cataloging?
Short answer: No
Long answer: It’s complicated

4. CRITICAL DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
A primer

5. CriticalDiscourse
Analysis
”CDA’s locus of critique is the nexus of
language/discourse/speech and social structure. It is in
uncovering ways in which social structure impinges on
discourse patterns, relations, and models (in the form of
power relations, ideological effects, and so forth), and in
treating these relations as problematic, that researchers in
CDA situate the critical dimensions of their work”
Blommaert, J. and Bulcaen, C. “Critical Discourse Analysis”

6. Context of situation:
the social context of a text
(Michael Halliday)
■ The field of discourse
■ The tenor of discourse
■ The mode of discourse

7. FIELD OF DISCOURSE
What is the text about?

8. Controlled vocabularies & thesauri
■ Controlled vocabulary: Standardized list of terms used to organize
knowledge
■ Thesaurus: A type of controlled vocabulary where terms have
relationships to each other
– Hierarchical relationships
– Associations
– Equivalencies

9. TENOR OF DISCOURSE
Who are the participants?

10. Keepers of controlled vocabulary
■ Institutions serve as caretakers of controlled vocabulary
■ Member community contributors are trained & contributions are
vetted by the caretaker institutions
■ Not every term contributed by a member of the community is added to
the thesaurus

11. Metadata creators as consumers of
controlled vocabulary
■ Demographics matter
– In 2009/2010, 88% of credentialed librarians were white (per
ALA’s Diversity Counts initiative)
■ Institutional priorities & limitations create challenges for metadata
creators
■ Cataloger’s judgement + lived experience = Cataloger’s bias

12. MODE OF DISCOURSE
What is the language being asked to do?

13. Controlled vocabulary: Good news for
people who love bad news
■ Controlled vocabulary helps to organize & arrange knowledge so that
it can later be retrieved
■ Good news: Controlled vocabulary promotes consistency
■ Bad news: Controlled vocabulary reifies a particular worldview

14. FINAL THOUGHTS

15. What can we do to become more
critically conscious catalogers?
■ Identify the institutions that create & maintain the thesauri we use
most often & the systems and structures they work to uphold
■ Examine controlled vocabulary with an eye toward who is called out &
who is erased
■ Consider our positionality

16. “Those steeped in and rewarded by dominant ways of seeing the
world don’t have to know how intensely political the ostensibly
neutral position is. If the white supremacists booking your meeting
space are not after you, you don’t have to know how dangerous they
are. Books about reparative therapy for gay people can be simply
another point of view if yours is not the body and mind those
authors seek to destroy. To imagine that neutrality could be
something we could choose is an intensely privileged position, one
that I have to imagine my way into as I listen to the arguments of
those absolutists whose worlds are rarely contested.”
-Emily Drabinski, from the ALA President’s Program at ALA Midwinter 2018

18. Thankyou!
eleach@uga.edu
@erinaleach