God, seriously. My friends are fellow 30-somethings who have never fucking voted and now suddenly are pissed about bureaucracy being bureaucracy. Shit, I had my political awakening freshman year of high school with the Bush/Gore election. How are these adults who grew up during 9/11, the Bush years, and the Obama…

Ok, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the Library of Congress updating their subject headings—which is what the GOP is mad about.

There is a small part of me that wants to hope Hillary will win Kentucky, since Bill won the state twice. But I seriously do not recognize this state anymore after the last couple of years. I was pleased to see how close the race was, thinking maybe some progressive pockets voted for Bernie. Then I saw that he won…

Ugh. Same. I initially tried to point out to the Bernie zealots when they were posting memes that weren’t factual, but had to give up. Now they’ve started posting insane right-wing anti-Hillary garbage and are constantly saying things like, “huh, that post I made of Hillary got deleted for some reason. Must be a…

We would use the same subject heading to describe the person: non-citizen. Then to narrow the scope we would include (I assume) the term “authorized immigration” to describe the act. The scope might narrow further to a subject heading that might differentiate the type of immigration, example being the difference…

But this isn’t a list of words that we find acceptable now, it is a list of words used to organize and retrieve information from a library. It is being updated because illegal alien isn’t used as often anymore, because it has taken on a pejorative meaning. Updating these subject headings effects no one but librarians…

Language evolves so the language we use to catalog information also has to evolve. An example: until a few years ago the LOC used the term “cookery” to catalog cookbooks. No one uses that term anymore, so it needed to be updated to ensure the subject headings being used are relevant.

Actually, research shows that graphic novels tend to have a higher reading level than most books for young people. In addition to having complex stories and working with important themes about society, technology, and identity. They are as diverse as any genre of literature as far as quality and depth go. Watchman was…

The local community college in my city actually has a program with the state university that students working on their associates can also have all of the benefits of students at the university. They can live in the dorms, play sports, use the facilities, join clubs, etc. All while paying Community College tuition…

This is also why I tell undecided students to at least take some prereq classes at a community college while they work. That way, they get a taste of college and they won’t be super far behind when/if they do decide to transfer to a four-year college, OR they could end up with a two-year associates degree which will…

Is NOHS North Oldham? Are you all thinking about moving to Oldham Co or staying in Louisville? I have visited a ton of schools in Louisville for work. Louisville’s school system is sometimes a mystery to me because of bussing and the magnet programs, but I have some insight into a number of the public and private…

In this case, I think non-citizen is being used as a broad term, which can be narrowed by adding other terms like “unauthorized immigration.” Non-citizen is the offical search term used to describe a person who is not a citizen. Unauthorized immigration is used to define the act of being in acountry without…

Yes, this is true in conversation, but when defining terms for information access and retrieval they must be clearly stated and up-to-date.

We’re talking about subject headings, not erasing the past. The subject headings have to updated because these words are no longer accurate and are typically only used out of ignorance or a pejorative.

Time to tweet the committee to have it updated!

And also, this update to the LOC isn’t completely a PC reaction. I mean yes, partially, but also the term “alien” has become a much wider scope that includes extraterrestrials. Additionally, because it is largely considered a pejorative now, it is not used as often and so is not an accurate subject heading anymore.

The people pushing for this are a committee of librarians whose job it is to update search terms for the Library of Congress based on how the terms have evolved over time. When the term alien was originally used, it was a much narrower scope than it is today and was not considered a slur. Now, we relate the term to…

I’m thinking immigrant may also be too specific a term for the level they are trying to define. The LOC is instead describing the people as “noncitizens” and choosing to define the act of being in the country illegally, instead of referring to the people as “illegal”—so, unauthorized immigration.

I keep trying to explain to students that they should be stoked on subject headings and use the thesaurus when doing database research to find useful articles more quickly and they (and their teachers, tbh) just stare at me open mouthed like, “buuuuh, why can’t I just google it? Wikipedia, tho?”

Anytime I had to do a project that involved the LOC SH thesaurus I would break into a cold sweat. I just want it to be better but it’s so outdated and how do you even begin to fix something so big? I’m sure the librarians who have worked to get “illegal alien” updated and removed are so pissed at the GOP right now. It…