Drag Storytimes and Bibliographic Invisibility: A Comparative Analysis of Picture Book Subject Metadata

Historically, library materials about diverse identities have often been subject to what Gough and Greenblatt (1992) term “systemic bibliographic invisibility,” the use of “outmoded, prejudicial, inadequate, or inappropriate terminology” (61) within bibliographic records to describe an item’s contents. Using such terminology within subject metadata can make materials challenging to find within a library’s catalog, restricting users’ access to the materials and the ideas they contain. Prior work has demonstrated that folksonomies like LibraryThing may better represent the multiplicity and fluidity of marginalized identities. In this study, we analyze the subject metadata associated with a corpus of picture books read during drag storytimes, comparing the inclusion of different types of subject metadata found in bibliographic records from the Library of Congress catalog and LibraryThing. Specifically, we analyze the use of terms that explicitly describe various facets of human difference and those that refer to diverse elements within the books in more generalized or implicit terms within the bibliographic records of picture books that include depictions of LGBTQIA+ characters and/or themes, BIPOC characters, and characters with disabilities, developmental differences, and chronic illnesses. LibraryThing records contained a higher prevalence of subject metadata types across nearly all book categories, indicating that users assign more of a variety of types of subject metadata than do professional catalogers. Implications for the discoverability and accessibility of children’s materials depicting marginalized identities are discussed.