Diversity Monitoring in the Library

Abstract

The collection of data about the identity characteristics of library users is the latest development in a long history of contested categorisation practices. In this article, I highlight how the collection of data about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) people has implications for the undertaking of diversity monitoring exercises in academic and public libraries. Based on experiences in the United Kingdom, I argue that recuperative efforts to ‘fix’ categorisation practices are not enough and overlook how categories of gender, sex and sexuality are constructed through the practice of diversity monitoring, how categories are positioned in time and space, and who is involved in decision-making about who to include and exclude from the category of ‘LGBTQ’.

Prejudice but no pride: The Portuguese Universal Decimal Classification’s labelling of sexual orientation

“…Nascimento and Guimarães (2017: 357) underline the weight of language, lato sensu , in the queer domain and the empowering role of knowledge organization, advocating it as a gesture of self-empowerment. Nevertheless, Guyan (2021) questions whether categorizing, in a detailed way, concepts related to identity characteristics in KOSs might produce the opposite consequence to that first intended – that is, stimulate and strengthen the segregation of social minorities, focusing on the case of the queer community. 1 In turn, Clarke and Schoonmaker (2018: 23) argue that ‘people from traditionally marginalised communities…need access to books and library resources about or created by people like themselves so that they can see their identities, stories, and experiences reflected in contemporary media’, which, they assert, requires that KOS vocabularies and structures accurately portray these identities and experiences.…”