Labels, libraries, and activism

Dartmouth College librarian/film director Jill Baron and Dartmouth alumni Melissa Padilla and Oscar Ruben Cornejo Casares will have a panel discussion on Wednesday at 4:10 p.m. of their film Change the Subject, a 54-minute documentary about Dartmouth students who challenged anti-immigrant language in the Library of Congress subject headings. Their advocacy took them all the way from Baker-Berry Library to the halls of Congress, showing how an instance of campus activism entered the national spotlight and how a cataloging term became a flashpoint in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill. In partnership with staff at Dartmouth, these students (now alumni) produced a film to document this story. The impact of the film has been wide-ranging, inspiring librarians around the country and the world to examine the ways that systemic racism pervades the institution of the library, particularly in its controlled vocabularies. Watch the film and register.