Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Contextual Classification At Out On The Shelves Library, Amber Dierking

Conference Proceedings

Out On The Shelves is Vancouver’s only Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Two-Spirit, Queer, Intersex, Aromantic/Asexual (LGBT2QIA+) library. Due to recent organizational changes, it has become apparent that its current classification system is no longer working effectively. Not only was the previous system unstructured and confusing, it failed to explicitly represent many aspects of the community it serves. This project was undertaken during the summer of 2018, researching alternative classification and queer issues in knowledge organization to determine how to improve it. This research, combined with careful consideration of the needs of the library itself and its users, suggested that building …