GENDER & SEXUAL IDENTITY IN REFERENCE AND INFORMATION SERVICES Emily Drabinski Coordinator of Instruction Long Island University,

Some of my axioms for talking about gender & sexuality Socially constructed We make our ideas about gender and sexuality together. Contingent We understand gender and sexuality relationally. Contested and negotiated We struggle with and against each other about the meaning of gender and sexuality. Social and public We name ourselves to find each other.

But how do we fix a thing in motion? By Avenue (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 ( or GFDL ( via Wikimedia Commons

Classification concerns

Cataloging concerns Angell, K. & Roberto, K. R. (2014). Cataloging. Transgender Studies Quarterly 1(1-2):

Solutions Submit corrected subject headings Develop local classification and cataloging strategies Integrate user tagging Vary citation order Challenge: None of the solutions can account for the paradox of fixing in library systems contingent gender and sexual identities.

Reference & instruction as sites of guided struggle

Questions I still have Does any of this matter? As we increasingly retrieve by algorithm, has the relevance of library classification and cataloging faded away? Is there a tension between naming so that identities can come into view, and the value of going un-inscribed in systems of power? Or, should we spend more time describing straight people? All well and good, but one on one interactions aren’t scalable, especially if the reference desk is dying! Are we sure there aren’t scalable technical solutions?

Sources for further reference On identity Butler, Judith. “Imitation and gender insubordination.” In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories edited by Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge,1991. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books, Riley, Denise. The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, Sedgwick, Eve. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press, Valentine, David. Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Sources for further reference On cataloging and classification Berman, Sanford. Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract On the LC Subject Heads Concerning People. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, Campbell, Grant. “Queer Theory and the Creation of Contextualized Subject Access Tools for Gay and Lesbian Communities. Knowledge Organization 27 (Fall 2001). Christensen, Ben. “Minoritization vs. Universalization: Lesbianism and Male Homosexuality in LCSH and LCC.” Knowledge Organization 35 (Spring 2008). Freedman, Jenna. “lcsh.” Lower East Side Librarian.

Continued! Keilty, Patrick. “Tabulating Queer: Space, Perversion, and Belonging.” Knowledge Organization 36 (Fall 2009). Marshall, Joan. On Equal Terms: A Thesaurus for Nonsexist Indexing and Cataloging. New York: Neal-Schuman, Olson, Hope. “Sameness and Difference: A Cultural Foundation of Classification.” Library Resource & Technical Services 45 (July 2001). Roberto, K. R. “Inflexible Bodies: Metadata for Transgender Identities.” Journal of Information Ethics 20 (Fall 2011). Schomberg, Jessica. “Cataloging and Social Justice.” retrieved from social-justice.html?m=1

Thank you! Emily