Multiracial Resources in a Monoracially-Organized Library World

Abstract

Mainstream library practices in organizing information generally reflects social norms in which white, as a racial group, is privileged and dominant and others are marginalized and frequently excluded. Multiracial/multi-ethnic people are growing in numbers and are increasingly unwilling to accept exclusion and invisibility. In a society that prefers the binary -- black/white, male/female, conservative/liberal -- fighting for anything else is a challenge. Researchers pursuing information about those standing outside of any racial binary typically struggle with poor classification in library catalogs and bibliographic databases, variable language with wildly different meanings depending on context, and offensive archaisms that may be their only entry to information resources. This paper outlines how an academic library organized a series of events to raise community awareness as well as provide better support for these and others that do not fit the easy categories of standardized classification.