October 1, 2024

The Secret Life of UW Libraries Catalogers and Metadata Specialists

Student Spotlight #4: Ally Okun

By Crystal Yragui, Metadata Librarian & Interim Co-Head, Metadata & Cataloging Initiatives Unit · University of Washington Libraries

You may be surprised to hear that before you can access a library resource when you need it, a lot of work must be done to get that resource into the UW Libraries catalog.

A whole department of librarians, staff, and students are quietly working away behind the scenes to get new resources into the catalog and to find innovative ways to enhance the Libraries’ metadata. This series of blog posts highlights our brilliant student employees and the work they do to make your tasks of searching, identifying, selecting, and obtaining library resources easier and more effective.

Ally Okun entered the University of Washington Information School’s Master of Library and Information Science Program after earning a BA in sociology and anthropology with minors in gender studies and classics from Lewis and Clark College. Towards the end of her MLIS program, Ally sought a Capstone project that would allow her to gain practical experience in knowledge organization through a social justice lens. The Homosaurus Implementation Project provided her with an opportunity to explore these interests in the professional context of the Orbis Cascade Alliance Cataloging Standing Group (CSG).

What is Knowledge Organization, and How Does it Work in the Library Catalog?

Knowledge organization is the discipline that has to do with the way information professionals organize, manage, and retrieve information. The library catalog facilitates information retrieval in several ways. When users search for resources in the library catalog, they often type terms into a search box. Sometimes they use advanced search options to target more specific catalog fields (or characteristics of a resource), such as subject, genre, author, or title. Most of the time, they rely on keyword searching.  Catalogers have rules for recording this information so that users can find what they are looking for with as little effort as possible. Much of this work is uncontroversial.

Metadata professionals often use controlled vocabularies rather than the language resources use to describe themselves in order to populate certain catalog fields. Controlled vocabularies are used in library catalogs to mandate the use of predefined, preferred terms for single concepts that have been selected by the designers of the vocabularies. Controlled vocabularies make searching for things in library catalogs much more efficient. [Wikipedia, 2024] For example, users from the United States can search for “Garbage”, users from the United Kingdom can search for “Rubbish”, and the Library of Congress Subject Headings controlled vocabulary will lead both groups of searchers to all the resources in a library catalog that have been assigned the heading “Refuse and refuse disposal”. When they are created, maintained, and applied thoughtfully, controlled vocabularies are powerful tools that benefit users.

What Harmful Social Impacts do Controlled Vocabularies Have?

Catalogers around the world rely on shared controlled vocabularies in order to share data (and workloads). Historically, the most-used controlled vocabularies have been created and maintained by institutions such as the Library of Congress and for-profit companies. Standard vocabularies created by these institutions tend to reinforce oppressive perspectives and further marginalize already-marginalized groups and ideas. Standard controlled vocabularies like the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) provide language for LGBTQIA+ topics that can be inadequate, inaccurate, or even offensive, reinforcing dominant heterosexual, cisgender, white, male, Christian and western perspectives. 

Ally teamed up with the CSG and a group of over fifty volunteers across the Orbis Cascade Alliance to try to address some of these issues by implementing the Homosaurus in the shared consortial library catalog, Alma/Primo, in 2023. 

The Homosaurus Implementation Project

About the Homosaurus

The Homosaurus is a controlled vocabulary which describes itself as “An international linked data vocabulary of LGBTQ+ terms. Designed to enhance broad subject term vocabularies, the Homosaurus is a robust and cutting-edge thesaurus that advances the discoverability of LGBTQ+ resources and information.” The vocabulary has been around since 1997, and is currently on its fourth version (version 3).  The Homosaurus Editorial Board oversees the editorial process, considering community suggestions and approving new terms, and releases changes quarterly. 

Why Implement the Homosaurus?

In an effort to mitigate harm and expand discovery, the Orbis Cascade Alliance Cataloging Standing Group (CSG) felt that focusing on an intentional, retrospective implementation of Homosaurus was necessary.

Project People

The project built on the work of Adrian Williams, a metadata librarian at the University of Kentucky Libraries, who came to the Alliance to provide tools and training on how to implement the Homosaurus in the Spring of 2023. The Alliance Norms Rules Standing Group (NRSG) also paved the way for this work by enabling the display of the Homosaurus and other non-LCSH and non-MeSH controlled vocabulary headings in the library catalog. 

At the beginning of the project, the CSG knew that it would need as much help as it could get with the work of designing the implementation project, authoring training modules, and performing subject analysis and metadata remediation. They submitted a proposal for a Capstone project with the University of Washington iSchool, met Ally, and found that Ally’s academic and professional interests were a great match for the project’s goals. Ally’s Capstone project ran as a sub-project of the larger Homosaurus Implementation Project (which is ongoing) during the 2023-2024 academic school year.

Project Design

The Homosaurus Implementation Project (HIP) invited volunteers from across the Orbis Cascade Alliance, with or without cataloging expertise, to participate in the retrospective enhancement of targeted bibliographic records in our shared consortial catalog with Homosaurus terms. Batches of target records have been extracted representing Alliance-held materials likely to benefit from Homosaurus vocabulary terms, and added to a central tracking spreadsheet. After attending several training sessions designed by the CSG with Ally’s help, project participants perform subject analysis on the selected records, either recommending terms from the Homosaurus for catalogers to add (in the case of non-catalogers), or adding the terms to the records. As appropriate, participants may request updates or new terms for inclusion in Homosaurus or Library of Congress controlled vocabularies. Work is recorded in the central tracking spreadsheet. 

 

“Ally’s contributions to the HIP training materials helped all project participants get off to a good start and significantly reduced barriers to participation for non-catalogers”

– Lesley Lowery, Orbis Cascade Alliance.

 

During the project, Ally not only assisted the CSG with designing training, but learned to catalog and received one-on-one training from her capstone supervisor, Crystal Yragui. Ally thoughtfully added Homosaurus terms to over 45 records during her project, enhancing discoverability for those LGBT+ resources for institutions worldwide. Reflecting on the project, Ally had this to say:

 “Being able to combine my own personal interest in LGBTQ+ representation with my professional interest in cataloging and knowledge organization meant that this project was always exciting for me to work on. I also got to see some of the inner workings of the CSG and how a project on this scale is organized, which I know will serve me well going forward in my career.”

– Ally Okun

Project Impacts

Through this project, the Orbis Cascade Alliance is forging a path to implementation of the Homosaurus for other libraries and vendors. This work is providing catalogers, staff, and students at Alliance institutions with hands-on training in Homosaurus implementation. This training can be carried forward through ongoing use of the Homosaurus in cataloging by member libraries. Participants contribute to and become part of the Homosaurus community of practice throughout the project. With more records populated with Homosaurus terms, search and discovery are enhanced for LGBT+ materials. After the project has concluded, CSG members will advocate for the inclusion of Homosaurus terms in vendor-supplied metadata with content providers and Ex Libris, and advocate for further Homosaurus training and implementation work within the ELUNA consortial community of practice. 

Ally graduated from the University of Washington with her Master of Library and Information Science shortly after the completion of her Capstone project. She has taken an internship with Health Affairs as the Taxonomy and Information Architecture Intern. We are so proud of Ally’s accomplishments here, and know she is off to do great things!

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