Considering the adoption of RBMS prejudicial works genre terms to facilitate the identification of historically prejudiced materials
Keywords:
critical cataloguing, Cataloguing ethicsAbstract
The article considers the limitations of conventional library cataloguing rules for surfacing and contextualising works with harmful and discriminatory content, using the Heritage Library of the Royal College of Physicians as a case study. It introduces the possibility of using a controlled vocabulary in 655 genre headings as a mean to identify this material, though notes that this is not without difficulties. It introduces a future event to enable cataloguers to discuss these difficulties and find solutions to them.
References
Cataloging Ethics Steering Committee (2021) Cataloging Code of Ethics. Available at: https://sites.google.com/view/cataloging-ethics/home [Accessed 6 March 2026]
Library of Congress (2022) 655 - Index Term-Genre/Form (R). Available at: https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd655.html [Accessed 28 February 2026]
Library of Congress (2025a) 245 - Title Statement (NR). Available at: https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd245.html [Accessed 28 February 2026]
Library of Congress (2025b) MARC Proposal No. 2025-06. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2025/2025-06.html [Accessed 6 March 2026]
Library of Congress (2026) Genre/Form Code and Term Source Codes. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/standards/sourcelist/genre-form.html [Accessed 28 February 2026]
Racist works (2024) in RBMS Controlled Vocabulary for Rare Materials Cataloging. Available at: http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/rbmscv/cv02129 [Accessed 28 February 2026]
Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (2018) Controlled vocabularies for use in rare book and special collections cataloguing. Availabel at: https://wayback.archive-it.org/6087/2023092719 2102/https://rbms.info/vocabularies/index.shtml [Accessed 28 February 2026].
Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (2024) 'Archived version of former RBMS Controlled Vocabularies', RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Community Discussion, 28 June. Available at: https://rbms.info/cv-comments/2024/06/28/archived-version-former-rbms-cvs/ [Accessed 28 February 2026].
RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group (2024) Report of the Prejudicial Materials Working Group. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/11213/22548 [Accessed 28 February 2026].
RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group (2025) RBMS Controlled Vocabulary for Rare Materials Cataloging. Available at: http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/rbmscv [Accessed 28 February 2026]
Royal College of Physicians (2024) Addressing colonial and discriminatory histories in Royal College of Physicians (RCP) collections. Available at: https://history.rcp.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-04/Decolonising%20Collections%20Public%20Statement.pdf [Accessed 6 March 2026]
Royal College of Physicians (2026) Heritage library catalogue. Available at: https://rcp.soutron.net/Portal/HeritageLibrary [Accessed 6 March 2026]
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Copyright (c) 2026 Katie Birkwood
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
