Term Circles: Using Linked Data as a Tool to Mitigate Colonial Subject Bias

Abstract This paper considers the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) recommendation to “decolonize library access and classification” and begins by exploring the difficulty involved when addressing this recommendation working from within a colonial institution that represents a colonial worldview. It compares general characteristics of Western and Indigenous worldviews and considers the affect that these perspectives have on the organization of knowledge and information especially in relation to a controlled subject vocabulary like the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). It presents the “term circle” as a way to mitigate colonial biases by creating a hybrid subject language system using SKOS RDF/XML in a linked data context. This hybrid system facilitates Indigenous community participation in the control and development of subject metadata and suggests a new role for library metadata.