Chapter 16, Summer 2021
CARNEGIE CACHE: Representing Latinx in the Boulder County Historical Record, Part 2: Visibility and Cataloging Nicole Docimo In the last issue of the Open Book, I wrote an article talking about the challenges of collecting materials that tell the story of Latinx communities in Boulder County and some possible creative solutions to these challenges. In this issue, I would like to discuss another facet of representing marginalized populations in archives: making what we already have discoverable. As I wrote in my last article: according to 2019 estimated census data, 9.7% of the City of Boulder population and 14% of Boulder County identifies as Hispanic or Latino. But at my best estimate, less than .6% of the records in the Carnegie Library catalog have identifying terms related to Latinx populations. By “identifying terms,” I mean that the items were cataloged with a series of different keywords and subject headings including: Hispanics, Latinos, MexicanAmericans, Chicanos and other variations of these terms. This list already points to one challenge in finding information about minority populations: identifying terms change over time and can include more and less specific groups (for example: Latino versus Mexican-American). Are there materials I am missing because I’m not searching the correct term or thinking of all the possible keywords? Possibly. We are working towards
improving and standardizing our descriptions, but this process is complex and takes time with tricky questions continuing to arise like: how can we catalog consistently but still allow for nuance and make searching user-friendly? We can decide to consistently use the term “Latinx,” but is that what patrons will search for? Another and more fundamental line of questioning also presents itself: how do we even decide to include an identifying term in a particular cataloging record? How do we determine whether archival materials are about or include Latinx communities? Below I will explore these questions through researching two photographs in the Carnegie Library collection.
Unidentified photograph of a family standing in front of a Louisville home. Call# 213-2-18, Carnegie Library for Local History/Museum of Boulder collection. The photograph above is one photograph I turned up as part of the .6% of materials in our archive cataloged with descriptors related to Latinx communities. Written on the back of the photograph are the words “Mexican-American.” The actual photoprint is not old; my guess is that it was printed in the past 30 years by Carnegie staff 25
