Sandy Berman asked me to post his essay Omissions and Distortions Abound in Libraries, Too, which I am glad to do!
Here's a bad OCR from Sandy's typewritten copy, just to give you a sense of what it's about (I'll edit it later if I get a minute):
OMISSIONS . AND DISTORTIONS ABOUND. IN LIBRARIES., TOO
by
Sanford Berman
Huch recent r eportage and editorializing has concerned the rE!llllova1
of r a cist public monuments, changing objectionable P.lace names (like,
Lake Calhoun and Lindbergh Termina.l in the Twin Cities), and the
enshrinement of colonialism in galleries and, museums •. Never mentioned
is the alarming a nd pervasive fact that libraries, too, often misrepres~t,
overlook, and even defame marginalized, exploited, indigenous, a nd.
oa.tr acized communities •.
Try searching a lmost any s~hoo.J., public, or academic library cata log
under the subject 11Native American Holocaust" (or "Native American
Genocide."). You'll. find nothing. It will. see.mas if the library
either owns nothing on that topic or that such au event or experience
never happened:.. Why?: Because.- nearly all libraries rely totaJ.ly on
the Library of Congress {LC,) to create subject headings. And LC. has ·
t hus far failed to recognize: the 1492-1900 Indian tragedy by establishing
a heading to denote it. If LC won't do it, neither will. a nyone else.
(The nearest 1C comes to such a descriptor is "India ns, Treatment of.11
Which would be tantamount to cataloging materials on the Jewish Holocaus.t
under "Jews , Treatme.nt of11 !),1
Simila.rly, LC. refuses to replace "Armenian Massacres"' with "Armeni an
Genocide, 11 a lthough scholars and historians overwhelmingly endorse such a,
change-.,, which better reflects what some millio\j. and a half Armenians,
:j.n T,urkeY und.erwent between 1915 and 1923. Likewiae , Indian nations were
undeniably victims of 11 ethnic cleansing," but that history is euphemis tically
masked , hidden, under subject headings like "Choctaw Indians--Relocation11
and "Cherokee Indoans--Relocation, 11 instead of t he more accurate.- and.
hone~ 11Choctaw Indians Indians--Forced removal" a nd "Cherokee Indians-Forced
remova l." Also, resources on the World War II confinement of
some 150 , 000 Japanese-Americans are lis ted in library catalogs under
HJapane.se -Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1 942-1945 , 11 grotesquel.y
suggesting that what happened to them was essentially benign and charitable.
A better heading would be 11Japanese-Americans--Mass internment, 1942-1945.11
Right now, despite the Am erican Library Association having denounce~
the heading "Illegal aliens" as pejorative and inaccurate, that
hurtful, anachronistic, and embarrassing rubric remains a live in
library catalogs., (AlJl. had suggested replacing it with 11 Undocumented
immigrants.") And both "Lepr osy" 11 nd "Leprosy patients" cont inue ~ -
active headings.,, although affected persons and the. u.s .. PubLic He1:, lth
Service pJ"efor the non-i:,tigmatizing "Hansen's disease" and "Hansen's
disease patients.11
Finally, many bona fide themes and topics relating to disdained and
oppressed peoples s.imply don I t appear in catalogs, again because LC
hasn't sancti.fied them. 11Na ti ve American Holocaust" is one example.
Here are more:. nHass inca eceratioP,11 11White privilege," 11Male privilege,"
11 'Broken wlimdows 1 po:Licing,11 11Anti-Arabism, 11 "Historical trauma,"
1'Universal basic income," "Affordable housing,'' 11Wage theft , 11 11 11Democra
tic socialism," 11Genderqueers, , 11 a nd 11Drag queens. 11
Local libraria ns ~ correct these omissions and di_stortions, but
lamentably \JOO ' t do so unless users demand it. It would also be
helpful for people who value both libraries and justice to ask LC.
itself to do tha Right Thing. Their address~ Policy and Standards
Division, Library of Congress_, Washington, DC 20540-4305 •.
The presence of "Illegal aliens" in nearly all library c a talogs,
as ,~·~11 as th.s absence of a heading that represents over 500 years.
of India n subjugation and near-extinction, may not be as prominently
obvious as public statues of G;; onfederate generals::, but they're no less.reprehensible.
And fixable.
Sanford Berman, Head Cataloger at Hennepin County Library in Minnesota
from 1973 to 1999, is a contributing editor to the Unabashed librarian
anQ editorial advisor for the Journal of information ethics.
His latest book is Not in .!!!l library! (McFarl-').nd , 2013);.