Given it is only three months to the next lgbtq* history month, and
therefore time to start doing a bit of work so I have something to bring to
the picnic, I was reminded of a modern problem in ethics, or a problem in
modern ethics. (Would these be the same for a text miner?)
At the revisiting collections launch by ALM, Museum of London last week, I
was reminded that in collecting in libraries we now have a family of
diversity policies in almost all our institutions, and possibly even
diversity officers.
We are prohibited in law from many things.
And now we have the policy concept of cultural diversity, to be celebrated
by UNESCO next year in the decade of education for sustainable development,
and multicultural concepts, for example in the EU research call on
econtentplus.
What brought all this to mind was a check on the term "homosexuality" in
Westminster Public Library, and my institution.
Some of the texts I would call homophopbic.
Which istitutions should collect this material?
How should it be presented?
But some of it produces the religious fundamentals of their believers'
faiths.
So our diversity means we must make a positive presentation of alternative
lifestyle choices, which are contradictory.
What perhaps makes it modern, was looking at the allocation of Library of
Congress subject headings.
Once upon a time, the seduction of the Mediterranean would have a title
entry under seducation? Added entries would have been decided upon
according to the policy of the institution. Now you have the subject
heading allocated I know not where or by whom. Hellenism and homosexuality
in Victorian Oxford similarly would have a title entry Hellenism and then
subject titles according to policy, but at least there is literary warrant
in the occurrence of the string in the title. (There is in the former too,
but it is in a sub title.) Now when you grep on a string, the h term will
appear anywhere in the title field, and anywhere in subject headings fields.
This means I must needs find things, even if I don't want them.
There is another new, google types etc which presumably affect selection
policies?
So when you select stock, to which diversities do you account?
And do you edit headings fields to represent policies?
This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email
Security System.
|