Statement on Harmful Content and Description

A large part of our work as librarians is to describe library materials using descriptive language and subject headings so that you can find items relevant to your research. However, some materials in our collections, and the catalog records that describe them, contain language that is racist, sexist, colonialist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other content that causes harm. Libraries collect and retain these materials to preserve the historical record. While these materials contain harmful language, they also have value for historical and cultural research.  

When describing these materials we rely on outside sources such as the Library of Congress for subject headings, which still perpetuate antiquated and harmful language. We are committed to proposing changes to the Library of Congress Subject Headings, and will work toward remediating this language locally as well.  We want you—the patrons of San Francisco State’s J. Paul Leonard Library—to know that we are committed to confronting this language, and will be changing it where we can, and providing content warnings where we cannot.  Our goal is to describe materials in a way that is inclusive and respectful of our entire community.

If you encounter harmful content in the San Francisco State University library catalog or a collection that does not have a content warning, please contact us via our form.

If you’d like to learn more about reparative description and the practice of confronting and amending harmful language in library catalogs and collections, the San Francisco State J. Paul Leonard Library recommends the following resources for further research: