What I seem to have come up with from these readings this week are a set of classification schemes and controlled vocabularies that have been used over the years to augment or replace DDC, LCC, and LCSH to make collections in libraries and archives more inclusive and combat bias – the racism and sexism and exclusionary \u201cnorm\u201d view that is part of these \u201cmainstream\u201d systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m trying to figure out what to do next. I will be working with a student this summer and before that I will be discussing bias in metadata in a brown bag presentation. I want to understand the landscape for the brown bag and I think I am getting there. I also want to have something concrete for the student to work on. The list of classification schemes and controlled vocabularies is incomplete and there are a couple of meta-lists I have found (LOC<\/a> has one and Bartoc<\/a> is another) so those need to be reviewed. I don\u2019t think these meta-lists cover everything in terms of controlled vocabularies representing communities, especially from that community\u2019s point of view, but having that as an output could prove to be really useful more generally in the library community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond that is this concept I have of trying out something to see if bias can be combatted through the front end search interface in addition to the backend where the metadata is created. There seem to be some possibilities with this using Homosaurus. It is a Linked Data source and the example of its use in IHLIA\u2019s search interface<\/a> is intriguing to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m also interested in Olson\u2019s work to connect a controlled vocabulary like that in A Women\u2019s Thesaurus<\/em> to a \u201cmainstream\u201d source like DDC. If Homosaurus can be connected in some way to LCSH terms (and that is a big if that still needs to be investigated), is there utility in offering that as an entryway resource for searching, to help users connect to items that already have records using only LCSH terms? Olson and Ward created the standalone search application for seeing connections between those 2 sources but I haven\u2019t seen anything about if it was ever implemented for research use in an online system. If there isn\u2019t an equivalent or close term in the mainstream source, then there isn\u2019t much point in connecting a controlled vocab term since it would end up lumping into a mainstream category that is too broad or not connecting to anything. But if there are connections, are they helpful to provide as a different view into a collection?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m ending this research leave with a lot of questions and I knew I would, but I think I do have a better handle on how to talk about the problem of non-inclusive or exclusionary online research tools and collections. Additionally and more importantly for the topic of bias in metadata, I have a better sense of what has occurred already in efforts to combat that marginalization and make the research process more inclusive through constructing new or modifying current classification schemes and controlled vocabularies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What I seem to have come up with from these readings this week are a set of classification schemes and controlled vocabularies that have been used over the years to augment or replace DDC, LCC, and LCSH to make collections … Continue reading