"Change the Subject"

I recently got the chance to see this fascinating documentary, and if you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend it.

In a nutshell, this film is about trying to change a Library of Congress subject heading. These subject headings are used as controlled vocabulary to categorize materials in libraries across the United States so that people and electronic retrieval systems can find materials on whatever subject they are looking for as accurately and consistently as possible. Because language is continually evolving, Library of Congress updates their subject headings constantly, and it's normally not a big deal. Then, in 2014 a group of students at Dartmouth petitioned the Library of Congress to change the term 'illegal alien' to 'undocumented immigrant', and suddenly, a lot of people started paying attention.

I'm going to go ahead and spoil the ending for you. Through the work of these amazing students and librarians across the country, Library of Congress agreed to change the term, but the House ruled that the Library of Congress was not allowed to change the subject at this time. So, for now, the official subject heading is still 'illegal alien'.

Here is an article from Library Journal that is a good walk-through of the effort and outcome as of 2016.

While that is an unfortunate end for the film, it is not the end of the discussion. On a broad scale, the American Library Association is still supporting the change and doing what they can to bring it about. There is also a growing grassroots sort of movement to change the subject heading locally. Whether they are adding the 'undocumented immigrants' subject heading or replacing the 'illegal aliens' subject heading altogether, there are more and more libraries changing their own systems to help advocate for change. Sol Lopez, at University of Colorado Boulder, has a webinar available that explains the issue and the massive project she undertook to update her library.

Much like the former subject headings 'Negro' and 'Oriental', 'illegal alien' is pejorative and should be changed. This change is only being blocked because of the current political climate. The House claims that they blocked it so that the subject headings will remain consistent with the language of Congressional laws, but history shows that Library of Congress updates its terms to reflect how people look for information, not to match terminology that already exists. Terms like 'Negro' and 'Oriental' were changed in Library of Congress before the law, and, to reference my former post on Dewey, Library of Congress has been updating the terms for various Native American tribes as they learn what those tribes call themselves. In none of those instances was the updating of subject headings blocked by the House.

The real factor here is that words shape people.

As you change the way information is organized and accessed, you change the way people think. The way I see it, if we change this subject heading, then over time it will impact the way undocumented immigrants and non-citizens are seen throughout the country, and if that happens, they won't be an easy scapegoat anymore. The country might have to actually look at the underlying economic and structural issues that are causing problems.