What is critical about critical librarianship?

Purpose and aim

What research question or objective is being addressed?

To articulate what makes critical librarianship ‘critical’ and show how library work—classification, cataloguing, discovery, policies and teaching—materially structures knowledge and power; then to outline principles for changing those structures towards social justice.

Methodology

Describe the research design, methods and sample size.

Conceptual and position piece (originated as a keynote). Uses reflective analysis and field examples (for example, Library of Congress (LC) classification in the Philippines; Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) treatment of gender and sexuality; classroom and HR anecdotes) to show how ideologies are embedded in library structures and practice. No formal empirical study.

Key findings and arguments

• Libraries are not neutral. Library work ‘structures intellectual worlds’ and is produced within systems marked by racism, patriarchy and capitalism; neutrality claims obscure this.
  
• Libraries are structuring machines. Knowledge organisation fixes materials in time and space; classification and discovery are technologies of control that collate like with like and encode ideology.
  
• Classification implies power. Catalogues and classification schemes facilitate some ways of knowing while marginalising others (for example, LC classification abroad; Filipiniana set aside; queer topics ghettoised in HQ).
  
• Principles of critical librarianship. (i) interrogate power in systems and standards, and ask who benefits; (ii) situate policies in social and political context; (iii) surface hidden and emotional labour; (iv) make infrastructures visible and expand what counts as collection and knowledge; (v) recognise the world could be otherwise and organise to change it.
  
• Organise power. Move beyond critique to collective action (hiring and retention, policy change, labour organising) that materially shifts conditions.

Relevance

How does it link to the research questions or framework?

Provides a rigorous lens for the methods spine: treat descriptions, discovery tools and policies as designable power structures; evaluate neutrality claims; and prioritise interventions (classification audits, provenance notes, naming and identity policies) that reduce harm and expand representativeness before adding new technology.

Project integration

Why it helps the project (evidence-linked)

• Confirms that knowledge-organisation choices are ideological, not neutral—mandating audits of LC and LCSH mappings and local thesauri (for example, HQ shelving and queer subjects). [@drabinskiWhatCriticalCritical2019]
  
• Justifies surfacing invisible labour (cataloguing, vocabulary maintenance, identity fixes) as explicit work items and resources.
  
• Grounds policy design (access, security, data retention, name changes) in the lived context of users rather than a ‘universal patron’ assumption.

Hooks into the project

• Workstreams: classification and vocabulary review; bias and provenance notes; identity and name-change policy; alternative and outsider collections; worker-facing workload and recognition review.
  
• Decisions: what to collect (beyond major publishers), how to describe, and which platform defaults to resist or reshape.

Use across the methods spine

• Framing and theory
  
• Study design
  
• Data collection and instruments
  
• Analysis and models
  
• Synthesis and interpretation
  
• Reporting and communications

Critical evaluation

Strengths

• Clear, grounded account of how cataloguing and classification enact power; vivid examples (Philippines and Filipiniana; queer-subject treatment); actionable principles.

Weaknesses and limitations

• Largely US-centred and essayistic; lacks comparative metrics or formal evaluation of interventions; some recommendations assume governance latitude that may not exist.

Author’s credibility

• Senior librarian (CUNY) associated with #critlib and critical pedagogy; widely cited in knowledge-organisation debates.

Contextual validity

• Highly applicable to GLAM and academic libraries; localisation needed for non-LC contexts and different legal and cultural regimes.

Comparisons

• Resonates with infrastructure and standards critiques and more-than-human/justice turns; complements technical bias work by focusing on institutional structures and labour.

Interpretation

Your own insights

• Treat description and classification change as first-order design (before tooling).
  
• Build participatory vocabularies with communities; document compromises and gaps.
  
• Make labour and policy trade-offs visible in outputs (provenance notes, ‘about the data’ pages) to normalise accountability.

Evidence to quote or paraphrase

• ‘Library work structures intellectual worlds… This work is not neutral.’ (page 49)
  
• ‘As the tools that order things, our catalogues and classification structures are themselves technologies of power.’ (page 50)
  
• ‘Critical librarianship knows that the world could be different.’ (page 53)
  
• On hiring and race: a call to normalise discussion of race and address whiteness in libraries and retention. (pages 55–56)

Related works

• LCSH and LC classification critiques; Filipiniana and Brian Deer classification (indigenous ontologies) as contrasts; critical-pedagogy applications in information literacy (IL).

Questions for further research

• How to measure the impact of vocabulary and classification changes on discovery, use and user trust?
  
• What governance models sustain ongoing critical description (time and labour budgeting, recognition)?
  
• How do critical policies (identity and name-change, policing and security, access) alter outcomes for marginalised users over time?