Cataloging and Equity of Access
While the disabled and neurodiverse community at our libraries share many of the same information needs and information-seeking behavior as other patrons, this community does have some needs and behavior that is common to the community. From the experience I have working at the circulation desk and conversing with this community, the top few information needs I see are the request for resources regarding:
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Health and Well-Being – Requesting medical information to learn about diagnoses, treatments, and therapies. As well as information on health services and disability rights.
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Employment – Often times members of this community whom I speak to are looking for job opportunities, as well as job training.
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Daily Living – There are many requests for information on transport and assistive devices that we may have at the library, or where they may acquire some of these devices.
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Social Activity – Many of the requests are fun in nature – wanting to have something fun to read, their favorite graphic novel, or wanting to know where the latest DVDs are.
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I am happy to help my patrons find whatever they may be looking for. One major barrier-reducing activity allowing more equity of access has been the global ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty in 2019 (Marrakesh Treaty, n.d.). The Marrakesh Treaty permits copyrighted material to be made available for users with print disabilities. Although, while the legal barrier has been removed, there are still systemic issues which can prevent individuals with print disabilities from being able to access campus or library resources. Often, both the provider of the materials, as well as the individual with print disabilities, lack the awareness of the accessibility standards and legal requirements for fulfillment made possible by the Marrakesh Treaty (Grain,2024).
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Cataloging and metadata for this community can also be challenging. Although it is a core tenet of libraries for our catalogs to be welcoming to all people, the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) that are related to disability and accessibility have been lagging behind. Historically these were constructed using a combination of definitions taken from medical, legal, and social interpretations. But with spoken vocabulary evolving over time, the current LCSH has tended to lag behind current information and attitudes towards this community. The terms used in LCSH tend to be quite archaic and outdated, and by using these outdated terms, the vocabulary needed to search for topics that would be of interest to the disabled and neurodiverse community can often be offensive and demeaning.
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Thankfully, we librarians are doing something about this! The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Metadata Networking Group of Illinois has put together several toolkits for revisiting metadata and subject headings that have not evolved with the times. You can find out more about them at https://deimetadatanetworking.wordpress.com/home-2/toolkits/. They currently have toolkits for Immigration Subject Headings, a LGBTQ+ Toolkit, and a Native American Toolkit is forthcoming. But the toolkit of most interest to us, when looking at the disabled and neurodivergent community, is their Disability and Accessibility Toolkit (“Disability and Accessibility Subject Headings Toolkit,” 2024).
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This group notes that, as libraries are meant to be for everyone, the use of these outdated terms in the LCSH clearly negatively impacts our profession’s goals of inclusivity and adapting to our local community’s needs. It is also hypocritical and can sour users from this community on the library experience. So, they have put together this toolkit to help libraries provide alternate access points and search terms.
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For most instances, they are suggesting person-first language for the changes, out of respect for the idea that someone’s conditions do not define that person. But they also make exceptions, notably for the autistic and deaf community, who have expressed that their identities cannot be separated from themselves.
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I have included a snip of the page from their toolkit below so you can see some of the current LCSH listings as well as the recommendations from this working group. This is a huge step in the right direction – updating our catalogs so the disabled and neurodiverse communities can search for resources in language that is comfortable and normal – and it is just the beginning of what we can do to hopefully bring down equity of access barriers for this community.
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Pictures above are from iStock library / Image of Disability and Accessibility Toolkit courtesy of The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Metadata Networking Group of Illinois
