Addressing Harmful Language in Library Discovery Tools
Last Updated: February 29, 2024
Policy
Carleton and St. Olaf Libraries aim to ensure an inclusive, accessible, and equitable environment for our patrons, including our library discovery tools. These tools and the information they contain are the work of many people across generations, and these records reflect a mix of past and current description standards and practices. We recognize that outdated, offensive, and harmful language may be found in our descriptive records. We are committed to addressing these issues in our discovery platforms when possible.
Harmful or offensive language may appear for a variety of reasons such as:
- Some derogatory terms used to describe oppressed people have been reclaimed and used by authors and creators from those communities.
- Subject Headings, which enable standardized searching and access across our library catalog, are controlled by the Library of Congress and may retain certain problematic terms.
- Information is transcribed directly from the materials themselves which may contain the creators’ biases and prejudices.
- Some records are maintained by commercial vendors and other agencies external to the Libraries and cannot be changed.
Our library staff is engaged in an ongoing effort to revise the catalog records over which we have editorial control. If you encounter any language that you consider to be harmful or offensive, please use this form to report it.
Click here to report harmful language: Harmful Language Report Form
Special thanks to the Gustavus Adolphus Library and Penn Libraries, whose harmful-language and antiracist statements helped inform our own.