Proposal work session: --> https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/unboundlibrary_complicating_gender_classification
1. looking into the thesaurus (homosaurus) as a way to complicate/complexify the binary classifications of gender
Screenshot of the visualization tool: https://cloud.constantvzw.org/s/7Xf3ArjGp2HJXCA?path=%2Ftexts%2FFeminist%20Search%20Tool%20Group#pdfviewer -> File = fss-repo.pdf
-homosaurus speaks to the content of the book
2. framing the potential gender(s) of the author from different sources like wikidata (collective authors/ missing information)-- analytics/approximation not so much definitions/ clusters speaks to the question of gender and sexualities --- clusters not labels
- From the IHLIA handbook on the homosaurus :
- - Descriptoren hebben betrekking op de inhoud van de publicatie, niet op de vorm of het land van uitgave of de wetenschapsbenadering, waarvoor aparte velden zijn.
- The descriptors (terms used in this field are coming from the homosaurus) are referring to the content of the book, not authors or their biographies
Follow-up brainstorm:
- Angeliki: gender category cannot be clearly defined.
- Annette: hoovering over books and finding categorization clusters in the homosaurus (intersectionality) --> descriptor terms that ihlia gives to each books
Homosaurus: as a continuously changing vocabulary (went to a digital tool only in 2019)
-- an organizing tool - a handbook (list of words, with hierarchies)... librarians always have the "handbook" next to them when they fill in the records
https://www.ihlia.nl/search/index.jsp?q%3Asearch=&q%3Acategory.row1.field2=DE%3A&q%3Azoekterm.row1.field3=lesbische%20beweging&lang=nl
- can we use the homosaurus to make (intersectional) clusters of terms?
- -- clusters instead of / or in addition to labelling authors by gender
- ihlia collection is less mainstream than the records if the UU library// abbreviations of first names / changing pronouns ... more difficult to find
- Benefit of the matrix visualization: it shows relations
- Intersectionality: colors // how to define these clusters with the help homosaurus
- Clusters approach (defining gender and sexuality in a more complex way without trying to define it concretely)
To DO:
- Looking into the manual / handleiding
- create spatial visualization (axis?) in the tool/ look at the json
- solid line for the publisher
- lets keep publishers on the Y axes as this is an interesting inquiry also for IHLIA
- X axis: alter to Homosaurus terms and put in relation to the publishers
- https://homosaurus.org/v2
- - date made available when a term was entered to contextualize terms. (there are 3 versions (0,1,2) of the international homosaurus.. the moments when terms are added or removed are not documented)
Foonoting the visualization tool.
Questions to other participants:
- Infrastructural Maneuvers: From notes on "Agency on classification" . Question: Dichotomy of necessity for 'static' classifications for finding things, at the same time openess for changes, versioning... How do you deal with that in your own practice as librarians? Do you know if any tactics?
- take responsibilty for the place
- book should have a place... on a shelf
- choosing the place on the shelf
- its a risk to open up the tagging, editing of - subject headings
- what are the points of contact?
- - bibliographic information and categorization live in parallel.
- how can classification be opened up to discussion, intervention, brought to the fore
- how could it happen collectively?
- Eva: its a practice, its trial and error
- Emily Drabinski (Queering the Catalog text) / adjustments and improvements of the library of congress catalog
- its a pressumption there is a correct naming of records / classifications
- Emily Drabinski moved on to teaching the/a catalogue (as a tactic)
- the catalog cannot do this work by itself (without us)
- "What do we do when toxic elements enter the compost pile?"compost pile (compost pile as metaphor of exchange, public, digesting, etc)
FS: there is always toxicity/ co-responsibility
- acknowledgement if there are no clean hands/ implcatedness
---> its interesting to think about - what anita was saying: the place of a book? i guess she has in mind the physical location... the shelf, with the FST we are mostly looking at records... the digital representation of a book.. quite abstract.. i think the visualization tool broke with that abstraction for the first time, which was really helpful for me. But it also introduces another abstraction.. i am interested in looking into these little colored rectangles/squares as representation of books... to hoover over. how could these representation address (visually) their discrepancies?
Rosemary (Mayday Rooms): "Archiving from below"
https://www.ihlia.nl/search/?q%3Asearch=homosaurus&lang=nl
* Homosaurus:
- an intervention into the library of congress system
- developing a list of vocabulary around LGBT, that then can be used in the description of a book, or object in the library
Anita: archiving from below / biblio record content putting pressure on classification
Rosemary: like a vocabulary list next to classification
- Clara: chaos is toxic? Structure is a matter for surviving in her place. Chaos and structure can both be toxic
- martino11:36
structures have the kindness of being something you can point at to question them
I could also imagine a similar question to Eva:
classificaton: how to speak at the same time to their (classification) artificality and their factual violence...not to decided for one of the two
- I looked again into thesauri: a way to get some agency in classifying, a group of people discussing the terms, negotiating these...
- classification is a practice, not a fixed decision
-- Responses from the chat:
Anja11:42
https://www.ihlia.nl/search/?q%3Asearch=homosaurus&lang=nl
* Homosaurus
Rosemary11:43 like a vocabulary list next to classification
Eva11:43 how does the thesaurus relate to the catalogue?
Anita: facets?
Anita: subject headings
Anita: description vs location
F_S: description + location
Clara: archipelagic constructs, porous borders, dividing waters between islands of obsession/interest/definition... to describe or define is to locate
Anita: not overwriting classification but keep trace of changes?
Roel: kind structures
https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
Donatella: I like the idea to think of what a structure of kindness can be / could include / represent...
Email sent to Mailing list:
Listening to all the conversations we see a lot of interesting overlaps:
- with Eva: Challenges of attribution, categorisation especially regarding multi-authored publications
- with Roel: The question of publishing/sharing datasets only under certain conditions is quite interesting to us
- with BAL: Some of us will be working with a concrete dataset of IHLIA the LGBT Heritage archive in Amsterdam. We are particularly interested in problematising the tools/interfaces we have been working on so far (https://cloud.constantvzw.org/s/7Xf3ArjGp2HJXCA?path=%2Ftexts%2FFeminist%20Search%20Tool%20Group#pdfviewer) and are thinking to use the homosaurus by IHLIA as a critical companion https://www.ihlia.nl/
- Anja will meet with Wilfred van Buuren (head collection) and Berry Feith (digitization) from IHLIA on Thursday 4th of June at OBA (Public Library in Amsterdam). I am planning to record the conversation. If anyone is interested in preparing the meeting together, we are planning to do that on Tuesday.
Notes from prep call:
https://wiki.feministsearchtool.nl/
https://feministsearchtool.nl/
Relevant repositories:
- https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/oba-api-workshop
- https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/fst-viz-tool
- https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/fst-amz-shadow-search
- https://github.com/hackersanddesigners/amz-recommends-scraper
Bookshelf research. ReadIn: performative reading sessions. Ringing bells at houses in the neighbourhood asking whether they can read from their bookshelves. First private and then also public libraries. Utrecht university library. Trying to find different categorisations. Gender, race, class. Looking at Marc 21 categories. gender information that wiki data provides, comparative study. For example wiki data: detects gender by name.
Thinking about tactics to continue research on Feminist Search Tool prototype
Utrecht library: representative of dominant knowledge systems. trying to find initiatives that deliberalty address these dominant modes
ex Black Archives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands: bring in different approach, work with different forms of library to bring forth marginalized knowledge and community representation
How to let these different terrains connect, converse?
Visualisation tool. How can you assign a gender category for a book that has multiple authors. >> questions of collectivity. think along lines of selfnarration
colors refer to categories they assigned, related to intersectionality, but what is 'social class', 'race', 'gender', cannot be found in connection with author but in connection with content (blur of a book but not always mentioned), little context provided by records
red link: info, category that is missing.
collaborating with Ihlia https://www.ihlia.nl LGTB library in Amsterdam (OBA Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, public library)
'homosaurus': how you relate & search topics, categories http://homosaurus.org/v2
moving from context of university library to more community based library - even if it is still instutionalized
Queer Resistence / Black Archives have been interfering into it, it is still white institution
University Library: was not focused on catalog, rather on the physical space for books
-> thesaurus is part of practise, how we do research
trying to visualise biases in their collection
https://atria.nl/bibliotheek-archief/thesaurus/
Learn from Ihlia? How they frame the material they have.
More collaborative conversations with librarians, people filling in the records (vs automatisation in University Library)
cfr BAL: different types of materials, different degrees of accessibility
Ihlia: a lot of materials is available on request, not public
Moving away from visualising, towrdas developing tactics.
Where do archives belong? Is it used in the right way?
Angeliki: Xpub Library experiment: see 'potential books' showing gaps in collections
worked with wishlist: by searching for item that doesn't exist, you can create that item as metadata
XPPL project https://issue.xpub.nl/06/
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/XPPL
>> ideas for work session / inviting people involved
exploring the RED LINK, aspects of catalogs that are missing. How to visualise that. Include the idea of 'red links'/missing collections/ authors/ categories in the already existing visualizing tool
- dealing with multiple authors, gender, class, race in attempting to visualize a collection