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Implementing Local Alternatives to the "Illegal aliens" LCSH

REport from the SAC Working Group on Alternatives to LCSH "Illegal aliens"

Tina Gross

St. Cloud State University

@aboutness

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Karl Pettitt

University of Denver

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Violet Fox

@violetbfox

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Cate Kellett

Yale Law School

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Members of the working group

Violet Fox (chair, independent)

Nick Bennyhoff (St. Charles City-County Library District)

Kelsey George (University of Nevada)

Erin Grant (University of Washington)

Tina Gross (St. Cloud State University)

Cate Kellett (Yale Law School)

Arden Kirkland (independent)

Karla Jurgemeyer (St. Olaf College)

Treshani Perera (University of Kentucky)

Karl Pettitt (University of Denver)

Jeanne Piascik (University of Central Florida)

Lisa Robinson (Michigan State University)

Deborah Tomaras (Marist College)

text of the draft report:

tinyurl.com/alamw20draft

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slides:

tinyurl.com/alamw20slides

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background

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June 2014

Dartmouth Submits Proposals

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Dec. 2014

Library of Congress Rejects Proposals

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Jan. 2016

ALA Council Resolution

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Mar. 2016

Library of Congress Announces Change

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May 2016

HR 4926 “Stopping Partisan Policy at the Library of Congress Act” Introduced

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Sept. 2016

Public Law 114-223 is Signed Into Law

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methodology

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  • Does your library catalog represent your single library, your library system, or a consortium of library systems?
  • What changes has your library / library system / consortium made to this subject heading?
  • Were the changes one-time, or are new records with the subject headings accounted for in your approach? If you made one-time changes, do you plan to address new records with the "Illegal aliens" LCSH?
  • Did you have to make changes in your discovery interface in order to include the changes you made to the subject heading? If so, what actions did you take?
  • What challenges did you encounter with making these changes?
  • Were library / organizational administration or other parts of the library involved in the decision to make these changes?
  • Were these changes communicated to the organization or the public, and if so, how?

Some Questions asked

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Survey results

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Primary approaches:

  • Retaining authorized LCSH and adding alternate terms
  • Replacing authorized LCSH
  • Retaining authorized LCSH and displaying alternate terms

Most who made revisions changed the heading to “Undocumented immigrants”

Trends in the results

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  • deciding how to make changes on a consortium-wide basis
  • deciding on which alternative vocabulary/terminology to use
  • unanticipated bibliographic maintenance, especially confusion around “aliens” versus extraterrestrials
  • forgetting to revise headings that aren’t alphabetically near “Illegal aliens” (like “Children of illegal aliens”)
  • keeping up with revising headings in newly imported bibliographic records
  • workload/staffing issues
  • database syncing issues causing delay in displaying revisions
  • working around automated authority control systems

Frequently reported challenges

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conclusion

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  • Prescriptive recommendations were not possible
  • Survey respondents’ most frequent comment was that they wish they’d made this change sooner
  • Anything is better than nothing

recommendations

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questions?

Violet Fox

violetfox@gmail.com

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Tina Gross

St. Cloud State University

tmgross@stcloudstate.edu

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Cate Kellett

Yale Law School

cate.kellett@yale.edu

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Karl Pettitt

University of Denver

Karl.Pettitt@du.edu

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Find the text of the

draft report at:

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tinyurl.com/alamw20draft

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