Project briefing on "Reimagine Descriptive Workflows"; Use of the Homosaurus at U Kentucky Libraries
Channel: LD4
Date: 2021-07-21

Project briefing on "Reimagine Descriptive Workflows": an overview of the project, how we got here, and next steps, Merrilee Proffitt
Description, classification, authority control, and cataloging practices are part of powerful naming and labeling processes. Collections’ metadata include outdated and racist terminology that cause harm.
The shift to linked data structures provides a moment to reconsider the systems libraries and archives rely on. However, an effective and sustainable remedy will never be established without strong participation from the groups affected by the existing systems. Supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this project seeks to address harmful practices by convening a diverse group of experts, practitioners, and community members to explore descriptive practices, tools, infrastructure, and workflows. Collective, community-centered efforts will explore opportunities to reform our systems and to chart a path toward implementation of antiracist and inclusive language in metadata.
In this project OCLC, in consultation with Shift Collective and an advisory group of community leaders, will:
• Convene a conversation of community stakeholders around the systemic issues of bias and racial equity.
• Share the need for approaches that promote effective representation and discovery of previously neglected or mis-characterized peoples, events, and experiences.
• Develop a community agenda for those who do knowledge work, identifying priority areas for attention, and providing valuable guidance for those national agencies and suppliers.

Use of the Homosaurus as an alternative controlled vocabulary at the University of Kentucky Libraries, ​Adrian Williams​​​
This presentation would discuss an ongoing project at the University of Kentucky Libraries to incorporate the Homosaurus, an international linked data controlled vocabulary centered on LGBTQ+ terms, into the library catalog as an alternative to LCSH. The first set of these projects began in early 2020 with the retrospective enhancement of bibliographic records with the LCSH “non-monogamous relationships” to include the Homosaurus term “polyamory” where such subject assignment was appropriate and accurate. Our second project, a retrospective enhancement of bibliographic records containing the LCSH term “Sexual minorities,” is larger and more comprehensive, seeking to add more specific and accurate Homosaurus terms to works that have been more generally cataloged using LCSH. The enhancement of these records to include more specific and current LGBTQ+ search terms will increase the findability of these items, especially among younger undergraduate groups and researchers to which these terms are more familiar.