phette.net/c4l26
March 2, 2026
Philadelphia, PA
Eric Phetteplace
Systems Librarian
California College of the Arts
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What lurks behind yond name URI?
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January 20, 2025: Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness EO 14172
February 7: Secretary of the Interior directs Board on Geographic Names (BGN) to rename Gulf of Mexico
February 13: Library of Congress issues Tentative Monthly List 12 LCSH 2
February 18: Deadline for the useless comment period on LCSH changes*
March 14: "America, Gulf of" enters LCSH
* See "D.3.a. The BGN decision" in LC's Subject Headings Manual: Formulating Geographic Headings H 690. "If the BGN decision has been obtained, favor it over any other name forms obtained from other sources."
"Gulf of America" is difficult to justify in terms of cataloging values. Consider a few principles from IFLA's "Statement of International Cataloguing Principles":
See also: Cataloging Code of Ethics (ALA)
Congress has interfered with LCSH too, with H.R. 4926 Stopping Partisan Policy at the Library of Congress Act.
"While recognizing the value of a shared set of terminology, the PCC community’s commitment to DEI principles necessitates a broadening of the perspectives represented in our library catalogs. Libraries have successfully used alternative vocabularies in addition to LCSH for years, and we encourage PCC members to continue to use alternative vocabularies in shared records whenever possible.
In light of this, PCC encourages its member institutions to explore avenues for reducing reliance on a single controlled vocabulary controlled by LC."
— PCC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee (2022-06-01), emphasis added
See also: The Trans Metadata Collective, Burns, J., Cronquist, M., Huang, J., Murphy, D., Rawson, K. J., Schaefer, B., Simons, J., Watson, B. M., & Williams, A. (2025). Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources (2.6). Specifically p. 16, "3.1.8 Cataloguing with Other Vocabularies".
Let's revisit our objectives. What do we want out of a vocabulary?
Homosaurus is a linked data vocabulary focusing on LGBTQ+ terms. "This vocabulary is intended to function as a companion to broad subject term vocabularies, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings."
The Getty Research Institute maintains a set of vocabularies which are "structured resources for the visual arts domain, including art, architecture, decorative arts, other cultural works, archival materials, visual surrogates, and art conservation."
Wikidata is a massive "free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines." It stores structured data to support Wikipedia and has no topical focus.
© Homosaurus Editorial Board
© Getty Research Institute
* CONA is also relevant but I did not end up using it.
For the "Creative Nonfiction" genre:
creative nonfiction (Q20669574)
genre of writing
Creative Nonfiction (Q65048560)
film by Dunham [2009]
Creative Nonfiction (Q5183530)
literary magazine
The first one is a genre and links to LCGFT. It also linked to the literary magazine's LCNAF until I fixed it.
For the "Magical Realism" genre:
magic realism (Q147516)
style of literary fiction and art
magic realism (Q24205155)
literary movement
Magical Realism (Q111598766)
1995 book by Zamora & Faris
Category:Magical realism (Q7210812)
Wikimedia category
magic realist fiction (Q102439494)
genre of creative works in any medium
First links to LCSH, last to LCGFT.
I ultimately redid all our URIs. I made several edits to Wikidata.
It is worth revisiting the ideological commitments of organizations that undergird our data and systems. Centralizing around terms controlled by any political entity comes with innate risk. In an age where American political parties seem to have lost the will and ability to materially improve the lives of ordinary people, we should expect symbolic struggles. The Gulf of Mexico is unlikely to be the final victim.
No institution is perfect. But some flaws are less likely to influence metadata quality. It is unreasonable to expect community-run efforts to fully substitute over a century of work on the Library of Congress vocabularies. Diversifying, instead of replacing, our authority sources is a more realistic approach.
Our repository migration will never be completed.
Vanderbilt Agreement
President Howse announces an agreement with Vanderbilt University. CCA will conclude operations by the end of the 2026–27 academic year.
This important message was shared with the community on Tuesday, January 13, 2026.
Dear CCA Community,
I am writing to share an important update with you about the future of California College of the Arts: to support opportunities for our students to complete their education and to honor CCA’s significant role in the Bay Area’s creative ecosystem, we have entered into an agreement with Vanderbilt University.