What's in a name? Decolonizing North American Indigenous Peoples subject headings in Iowa

Abstract

<p>Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) for North American Indigenous Peoples (NAIP) do not always reflect the preferred names of thosebeing described. Often, cataloging and metadata professionals are constrained by names imposed during colonization.</p> <p>For example, the Meskwaki people in Iowa are classified as Fox Indians --Iowa in our library catalogs. LCSHhas established Fox Indians heading which is used for (UF) Meskwaki and other variant headings.[1] Decades of scholarship analyze library subject metadata and problematic representations of peoples and cultures. But while many authors identified issues with these library headings, few solutions have been implemented. According to a 2017 OCLCsurvey, libraries were more likely to have planned changes to metadata in library catalogs than to have implemented changes</p>