Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches. Amber Billey, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl (eds). ALA Editions, 2024. Paperback, 296 pp. $64.99 (979-8-89255-566-1)

”Books are for use. Every reader his or her book. Every book its reader. Save the time of the reader. The library is a growing organism” (Ranganathan, 1931). Every library student learns these laws in their first semester of library school. Furthermore, every student who becomes a cataloger learns the importance of words, word choice, and cataloger’s judgment, which brings us to Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches. Within its pages, the editors bring their collective decades of expertise to the areas of cataloging, collection development, and metadata, compiling the histories and works of practitioners in the context of inclusive cataloging. In turn, this provides the context for the 19 case studies in Part II.

Inclusive cataloging is not a new concept, and practitioners have been incorporating it into their work for decades. The events of 2020, precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring and by the death of George Floyd that summer, created a shift in the library world, making staff in the library—especially in technical services, special collections, and archives—re-evaluate and reconsider their collections in terms of accessibility and discoverability.

Inclusive cataloging, also known as radical cataloging, reparative description, critical cataloging, and various other terms, is “a movement that focuses on developing critical practices around cataloging which can mitigate harmful ideology present in library catalogs, cataloging standards, and controlled vocabularies. … The movement seeks to understand how these historical forces continue to perpetuate harm within our libraries and find solutions to these structural problems within library catalogs” (Pratt Institute Libraries, n.d., para. 3). In chapters 2 through 5, the contributing authors provide a cross-section of past and present, addressing pressing concerns found in cataloging and classification. In their chapter “This Is the Work,” Fox and Gross highlight the work of librarians from an African American perspective, including Dorothy Porter Welsey’s contributions at Howard University, overseeing its collection focused on Black studies in the Moorland–Spingarn Research Center. Welsey discovered that the university library had placed such works under the Dewey Decimal Classification call numbers 325 (colonization) or 326 (slavery), instead of their relevant subject areas (e.g., placing the Black poet James Weldon Johnson under 811, poetry). Fox and Gross also address criticisms from the indigenous perspective and challenges through the gender and sexuality lenses. They discuss the collaborative actions taken via the radical and critical cataloging movements that started in the 1970s with Sandy Berman’s book, Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People, and the creation of the Subject Authority Cooperative (SACO) in 1993, which allowed librarians to submit proposals for new subject headings in hopes of addressing bias.

Chapters six through nine focus on the specific themes of accessibility metadata, gendered information, inclusive comics cataloging, and the critical cataloging movements in GLAMS (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Special Collections) that have taken place outside the purview of the Library of Congress, American Library Association, and Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). Altogether, Part I, “History and Theory,” provides a good background on the what, how, and why of inclusive cataloging. With online directories, it is encouraging to see the addition of accessibility features on a publisher’s website (figure 6.1, p. 81) and in library catalogs (figures 6.3–6.6, pp. 83–86); however, it would be more helpful to readers if the information in the figures was in a larger font size or magnified (in an ebook, this would be easily remedied by adjusting the zoom).

”Part II: Case Studies” brings together contributors from across the United States, from small and large libraries, from single systems to consortia, from academic to public, as well as special libraries. With such a large number of chapters, it would have been useful to have the chapters grouped by like-themed studies or to provide an index for searching or browsing. Although 19 case studies may seem like a lot to peruse, they are all a relatively quick and easy read, with references for further reading.

The first case study, “Words Matter,” details the work of the Schaumburg Township District Library in Illinois to craft and adopt a “harmful content statement” for their library catalog (p. 125). The library’s hope was to “shine a light on the benefits of public libraries engaging in this work in a way that makes sense for their collections ... [and] help libraries to focus on the best way to describe materials in a way that is respectful and informed by their communities” (p. 126). The next two case studies also feature public libraries, with two later chapters featuring special libraries (Hayes Research Library at Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts and the Utah State Hospital Library). The remaining cases highlight the endeavors of various college and university libraries. In some instances, libraries undertook the responsibility to update, revise, and/or replace problematic Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) such as the term “illegal aliens.” In other cases, they sought to enhance subject access to make works on BIPOC, LGBTQIA1, and religious identity groups more discoverable in the catalog and/or archives.

In Inclusive Cataloging, the editors’ goal was to “document both what has been accomplished and what still needs to be done ... [with the] hope to inspire others to take up this work” (p. xi). For those who work in technical services, special collections, and archives, there is always more work to be done, both retrospectively and ongoing. Though this compilation only spotlights a handful of public and special libraries, it would make a suitable addition to any academic, public, or special library collection. The book would be especially useful for library students looking for a research idea and practitioners considering future projects.—Linh Uong, University of North Georgia

Reference

Pratt Institute Libraries. (n.d.). Inclusive language. https://libguides.pratt.edu/c.php?g51278195&p59456636

Ranganathan, S. R. (1931). The five laws of library science. Madras Library Association. E. Goldston.