Language and Information Control

Celeste West, badass librarian

Controlled Vocabulary.  It sounds pretty serious.  It’s the name librarians give to any fixed set of language that is used to describe information.  In our catalog, Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are the controlled vocabulary.  Different databases have their own sets of controlled vocabulary to describe articles and other materials.

But look at that term again.  Controlled Vocabulary.  The vocabulary–the as-yet-invisible set of words–is actively being controlled by some unknown agent.  And in turn, the vocabulary is doing some controlling of its own–it is permitting or denying access to the information, depending on whether or not you’re able to find the “right” term.

So what happens when you try to wrest control from the all-powerful Vocabulary and the Wizards behind it?  Well, sometimes you get called “a major pain in the ass” by said Wizards, which in my mind is the highest of praise.  That (and more) is what happened to Sanford Berman as he spent his career trying to reform the racism, sexism, and homphobia of LCSH.  He though, quite rightly, that terms with inherent (or sometimes quite explicit) bias and negativity limited patrons’ ability to access the information they really wanted, and he did a lot to make the situation better.  Eventually he got fired.

As librarians, we often talk about intellectual freedom and how important it is to provide access to information for anyone.  Banned books and censorship get a lot of attention, and it’s easy to get behind those causes.  Huzzah!  All information for all people!  But what happens when the controlled vocabulary does the censoring for us?

What has your experience been like searching for information in libraries?  Can you think of any other ways to provide access to information that doesn’t rely on controlled vocabulary?

A few additional thoughts:

-Next time you search in the library catalog or databases, take a look at the controlled vocabulary.  Here’s an example of a book that certainly benefited from Sandy Berman’s work.  Take a look at the subject headings on the right side of the page or at the bottom.  Nothing about deviance!  Victory!

-Read one of my favorite short stories, She Unnames Them by Ursula LeGuin.  I think it fits well with this discussion and with Inga Muscio’s piece on Dictionaries.