Words Hold Power: Reclassifying Library Materials

“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge...it must be rejected, altered and exposed.” -Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture December 7, 1993

The categories we use to refer to groups of people are not simply neutral descriptors but often implicitly come with various associations or value judgements, which influence how society perceives them. Language is not stagnant and tends to change to better fit how we see ourselves. The Alternative Classification Committee works to address and interrupt ways that subject terminology and classification perpetuate racism and bias. We feel strongly that our patrons should not see pejorative terms or be participants in an ongoing system of oppression when trying to access information in our libraries.

As an immigrant myself, I thought that being part of the team to eliminate the term illegal aliens was crucial and long overdue. Since the Library of Congress (LC) has been slow to keep up with subject heading changes, Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and New York Public Library (NYPL), along with BookOps (BPL and NYPL’s shared technical services) decided to take matters into our own hands and make changes to our catalogs. This allows for the subject headings Illegal Aliens and Aliens to be changed with the alternative subject heading Undocumented immigrants and Noncitizens in our respective catalogs.

On November 11, 2021, the American Library Association (ALA) put out a press release stating that the subject headings Aliens and Illegal Aliens would be replaced with the new subject headings Noncitizens and Illegal Immigration. However, BPL and NYPL strongly feel that the changes we made are the right move and will not be reverting to reflect the ALA's changes.

In addition, the Community Engagement team worked on a) creating awareness, and b) making a 3–5-minute video at the Dekalb, Flatbush and Sunset Park libraries, which captured community members' experiences, thoughts, or feelings regarding the term illegal alien. With a camera and microphone in hand we were able to record many interviews, even though most of the participants were camera shy and some opted to not be recorded as they spoke about the abuses they had faced as immigrants. Many community members were shocked to learn that the Library’s catalog was still using non-inclusive language, but were happy to hear that we wanted to update it. Not all the interviews made it into the video, but we hope that this conversation continues (see the video here).

The Committee will continue to take steps towards ensuring that the terminology we use is inclusive and respectful to the communities that use our libraries. While we are not the first to make such changes, we are hoping that this first step will lead to other subject heading changes within our catalog.