Hello! I am an Archivist at Kennedy Library's Special Collections and Archives. I can help you navigate archives research and primary sources, from Kennedy Library's Special Collections and Archives to around the world and online.
Contact:
Special Collections and Archives
Kennedy Library, Cal Poly
What artists' books does Special Collections have?
Artists' books in Special Collections and Archives are cataloged in the library's catalog OneSearch. You can begin you search by browsing the library's collection of artists' books. A good place to begin is by searching "artists books" as a subject and genre in an advanced search.
A point about how we navigate searching through Artists' Books via library catalogs:
To navigate through our collections and search our collections, Kennedy Library uses the Library of Congress' Subject Headings, a "controlled vocabulary," to catalog materials. This is a standard controlled vocabulary for many university libraries. The LOC Subject Headings are posed as "neutral," however, the words and phrases that have been chosen are inherently not neutral. They have inherent bias that primarily reflects a white, cis-male, U.S. standard. As a result, you will find subject headings that may be harmful and offensive.
An example of this bias in action is the use in the Library of Congress Subject Headings of the racist term "illegal alien." Students at Dartmouth advocated for challenging and changing the use of the term. Their advocacy is documented in the documentary Change the Subject. Kennedy Library's Culturally Responsive Cataloguing Group spurred the change in our local systems, where the racist term "illegal" no longer appears, and is visibly replaced with "undocumented person."
Cataloging is a subjective practice. Experiences and identities of individuals shape how they interpret and describe materials. Learn more about critical cataloging.