Star Wars - CDramas - SKZ - aural pleasures - idek anymore
1/2054 →
This is my favorite web page today.
In my job, I often need to consult/use controlled vocabularies. While vocabularies like the Library of Congress Subject Headings are very slow to update, thus frustratingly behind the times and in need of serious reparative work, the entries don’t usually have descriptions.
Usually, I don’t even look at the descriptions unless I need to disambiguate similar terms. I’m just looking to make sure that the correct term/place/event/etc. is referenced.
But this week, while checking Honolulu, I saw the following description.
Tourist destination and important transport point for north Pacifc ports, including San Francisco, Panama and Sydney; missed by Captain Cook, harbor was entered by Captain William Brown in 1794; occupied by Russians, British and French in the 19th century; has many institutes for Hawaiian culture.
This description so clearly reeks of colonialist attitudes.
The Honolulu area and Hawaii in general has a history that predates any white contact, and was its own kingdom, rudely overthrown by the U.S. It should not be characterized by its importance to other countries (notice no mention of the U.S. hahaha). Plus, the last bit seems like an afterthought.
My colleague thinks the description may be coming from the Encyclopedia Britannica and he may be correct. Which makes it no less insulting. Maybe more so.
I consulted Wikipedia, which seems fairly accurate about current Honolulu, and it doesn’t describe the city in such a weird way, even though it clearly adheres to a non-native standard.
Since the TGN is managed by the Getty, I don’t expect that group to rush to make reparative modifications, and this makes me both angry and sad. I may drop them an email anyway.
Also note that Pacific is spelled incorrectly.
T-shirt that says “I survived the 2023 Barbenheimer marketing wave without watching either movie”
