Dewey numbers for LGBTI topics have been and at times continue to be homophobic, reflecting the society and times in which the numbers are developed, from the nineteenth century to present. Melvil Dewey, a man so obsessed with efficiency he shortened the spelling of his first name and considered spelling his surname as ‘Dui’, invented Dewey decimal classification in 1876. Given the nineteenth century origins of DDC, many have noted the inherent cultural bias including a Christian concentration, racism, sexism and homophobia.

I enjoyed Miriam Posner's keynote address at the Keystone Digital Humanities Conference.  It was far from the only talk last week that was animated by a desire for justice and compassion, and it was good to see that desire given such prominence by the organizers and applauded by the attendees.  As

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This study explores the extent to which research published in Latin America—where the vast majority of which is made freely available to the public—has an impact and reach beyond the academic commu...

Consider the following record, inspired by the discussion on AUTOCAT that was kicked off by this query: 100 1_ ‡a Smith, June, ‡d 1977- 245 00 ‡a Regarding events in Ferguson / ‡c June Smith. 260 _…

A number of years ago, a young man came to the reference desk with a question for the Social Science, Philosophy & Religion department librarians. He asked me why books about gay men were next to the shelves with incest and sexual bondage books. He said that wasn't how he was at all. His face showed deep hurt and from his expression, I read that as a gay man who came of age in the 21st century, he had never experienced the kind of marginalization, ostracization, and ridicule I had seen my friends fight when I was his age.

One example of algorithmic classification not working well at aaaaaaaaaaaaaall.

White authors reign in book reviews, bestseller lists, literary awards and Amazon.com recommendations.

The interpretation of RDA Rule 9.7 regarding gender when identifying persons by Library of Congress (LC) and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) reinforce regressive conceptions of gender identity.  The rule instructs catalogers to record gender when identifying persons, and although RDA gives catalogers the flexibility to record more than two gender labels, LC limits Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO) catalogers to a binary label: male, female or not known.  In this article, the authors challenge gender as a descriptive attribute for personal names, critique how LC is instructing NACO catalogers to record elements about gender, and make recommendations to address describing persons in LC authority records.

During the VII Summit of the Americas held in Panama from 10 to 11 April, presidents from several Latin American countries, including the Panamanian host Juan Carlos Varela, Cristina Fernandez of

We can’t ignore the composition of the Unicode Consortium’s members, directors, and officers -- the people who define the everyday writing systems of all languages across the globe.

Redlining and other unjust uses of big data.

Important for libraries too.

In the future, will platforms own our pasts?