Document Type

Editorial

Faculty Sponsor

Kimberly Schroeder

Publication Date

January 2024

Abstract

The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are widely used around the world in libraries and archives to add access points for users searching their collections. This can be problematic because LCSH has many embedded issues including inconsistency and complexity, the myth of neutrality that surrounds it, systemic biases, and how slow it is to change. These problems lead to poor descriptions of people, especially those who belong to historically marginalized communities. Archives can move beyond LCSH to create local thesauri, crowdsourced vocabularies, and collaborative partnerships with historically marginalized communities to create more inclusive subject headings.

Disciplines

Archival Science | Library and Information Science

Areas of Expertise

Archives; Description

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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