Antiracism in the catalog: An analysis of records

Elizabeth Hobart

Abstract

As people seek to learn more about race, bookstores have begun selling out of books on antiracism. These titles are, of course, also available in libraries, but can be difficult to locate in the catalog. Patrons will be able to find them through known title searches, but the catalog should go beyond this.

The first user task in the “Library Reference Model” is to find, defined as “to bring together information about one or more resources of interest by searching on any relevant criteria.” Ideally, a patron should be able to search terms such as racism or antiracism in the library’s catalog and find a comprehensive list of titles on the topic or start with a known title and find other, related works. However, catalog records often fall short due to lack of appropriate keywords or subject headings. When a patron is ready to move beyond recommended reading lists and discover new books, will the library catalog aid in discovery?

Full Text:

PDF HTML
Copyright Elizabeth Hobart

Article Views (Last 12 Months)

No data available

Contact ACRL for article usage statistics from 2010-April 2017.

Article Views (By Year/Month)

2023
January: 108
February: 111
March: 133
April: 78
May: 97
June: 77
July: 69
August: 84
September: 56
2022
January: 150
February: 284
March: 254
April: 222
May: 159
June: 123
July: 124
August: 114
September: 96
October: 112
November: 170
December: 90
2021
January: 171
February: 172
March: 230
April: 159
May: 118
June: 215
July: 205
August: 152
September: 190
October: 234
November: 280
December: 134
2020
January: 0
February: 0
March: 0
April: 0
May: 0
June: 0
July: 0
August: 0
September: 2280
October: 490
November: 155
December: 138