Librarian Emily Drabinski talks about the library catalogue as a meaning-making structure. Drawing on her text «Teaching the Radical Catalogue» (2008) she takes on the geopolitical situatedness of Western library systems and describes how information retrieval is never a neutral, technical act, but is shaped by social and political factors, the colonial heritage of which must first be addressed for any de-colonial practice to take place. The conversation took place in the framework of the artistic research and education project «Teaching the Radical Catalogue: A Syllabus 2021–22», which investigates the process of information retrieval as a political project (syllabus.radicalcatalogue.net).
Emily Drabinski works as Interim Chief Librarian at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). She is series editor for Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies (Library Juice Press/Litwin Books) and on the board of Radical Teacher. Her scholarly and activist work focuses on critical pedagogy, queer theory, library instruction and cataloguing practice.
