Portal:Library and information science/Selected biography/4
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sanford Berman (b. October 6, 1933) is an outspoken, radical librarian (cataloger) known for promoting alternative viewpoints in librarianship and acting as a pro-active information conduit to other librarians around the world, mostly via public speaking, voluminous correspondence, and unsolicited "care packages" delivered via the U.S. Postal Service. Will Manley, columnist for the American Library Association publication American Libraries, referred to Berman as a 'bibliographic warrior.'
The spark of Berman's cataloging revolution was the inclusion in Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) of the term kaffir, which he came across while working in Zambia : "Berman was told by offended black fellow-workers that calling someone a kafir was similar to being called a nigger in America."
This motivated him to systematically address subject heading bias in his work at Hennepin County Library and in writing "Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on the LC Subject Heads Concerning People."
