Organised by Cosima Wagner (Freie Universität Berlin) and Christian Meyer (Freie Universität Berlin/EXC 2020), project The Invention of the Modern Religious Bookshelf: Canons, Concepts and Communities, Research Area 3: "Future Perfect".

Within the discourse on "how religious literature was given a new, peculiar place in the modern system of knowledge", libraries can be considered a powerful stakeholder as the responsibility to provide a meaningful arrangement of the physical and virtual religious bookshelf is assigned to librarians who will have to adhere to bibliographical classification systems in use at their specific libraries. However, as Franz et al. (2022:4) have pointed out:

Library classifications are not neutral or static, but are collectively produced in a reciprocal process through the differentiation practices of librarians and academics – predominantly from the Global North.

They are culturally shaped, location-bound and thus products of performative actions and 'Western' discourses, which are not to be understood as objective facts, but as constructed 'realities'. In these 'realities', attribution and representation in social interactions condense in a complementary way.

At the same time, they contribute to the construction and reproduction of diverse social inequalities and power relations. Boundaries and constructions have been 'inscribed' in library classifications as a result of social interactions. (trsl. Cosima Wagner)

Therefore, while it is an inherent requirement of knowledge organisation systems to reduce complexity, this reduction will be rooted in the worldview of their developers, their terminology and way of describing "the world".

In the case of the religious bookshelf, this includes a culturally biased definition of what is considered as "religion literature" (both religious literature AND literature on religion) in the first place. As Baker and Islam (2020) have analysed in detail, the section on philosophy and religion in prominent classification systems like the Library of Congress (LC) classification (and subject headings) was "formed at the height of the colonial era and deeply reflects the politics of this era even today". It is heavily biased towards Christianity as the "normative religion" whose categories form the foundation of what is regarded as a religion (meaning making, theism etc.) in the classification scheme.

Recent initiatives under the motto of "decolonising the library" have called for more critical cataloguing and an end to perpetuating out-of-date worldviews and bias in library catalogues. However, faculty-library dialogues regarding reclassification issues in general and a re-design of the modern religious bookshelf in particular have hardly taken place.

Therefore, the workshop aims at bringing together researchers and librarian stakeholders to (1) reflect on current library classification systems and (2) discuss their respective power to (re-)design (or even "(re-)invent") the modern religious bookshelf.

Guiding questions:

• How can we describe the current state of library classifications of "religion literature" globally and locally? What are the specific problems?
• What is currently excluded from or not findable on the modern religious bookshelf by dominant classification systems (LOC, DDC, at Freie Universität Berlin: RVK)?
• What are examples of a re-classified religious bookshelf and what are best practice approaches to tackle this task?
• How can the contextual origins of knowledge organisation in classification systems (of the Global North, worldwide, in comparison?) regarding religion be made more transparent for users of the religious bookshelf?
• How can we "decolonise" the modern religious bookshelf? Shall we?
• How could solutions (strategies) for a less biased classification system look like in the digital age?
• What do religious studies researchers from different backgrounds expect to be on the "religious bookshelf"? What do they expect for a future "religious bookshelf"?
• Regarding the findability of the religious bookshelf in the digital space (library catalogs, databases, platforms): How to ensure the findability and accessibility of religion literature in original scripts – especially non-Latin scripts – in knowledge infrastructures with a bias towards monolingual, anglophone language support (Fiormonte 2021, Horvath et al. 2024, Zaugg 2024)?
• How can we prevent that books related to religion get "lost" (are not found) in present or future (e.g. "de-colonised") classification systems in a digital age? What about the memory function of books that present earlier ways of academic thinking (e.g. using outdated classifying categories such as "magic", "primitive religions", "animism" etc.) if they are reshelved?
• How do practical aspects of library logistics and human resources (e.g. needs of time-consuming reshelving) hinder or influence efforts to reorganise libraries?

Addressing such questions, the workshop also aims to deepen library-faculty collaboration for the task of a better representation of (academic) knowledge not only from Religious Studies but also from the Area Studies (with a focus on academic studies on "non-western" religions) and "non-Latin script world" in digital knowledge infrastructures.

   

Contributors are asked to connect their presentation to one of the following four workshop themes and the guiding questions elaborated above. Presentations can also include case studies, best practice examples, theoretical as well as organisational thoughts related to digital or physical (re)shelving practices of the religious bookshelf/bookshelves.

Workshop themes:

1. Criticising the classification systems for religion/religious studies
2. Discussing possibilities and efforts of reclassification (based on case studies):
3. Where to go from here? Conceptualising strategies towards the development of new guidelines for classifying religious literature
4. Digital transformation of the religious bookshelf? Challenges, solutions, dangers?

A publication of workshop results is planned and will be decided together with workshop participants.

  

If you are interested in this workshop, we kindly ask you to send us a preliminary title and short abstract of your presentation to cosima.wagner@fu-berlin.de by 18 April 2025 the latest.

 

Bibliography

Baker, Drea; Islam, Nazia (2020). From Religion Class to Religion Classification and Back Again: Religious Diversity and Library of Congress Classification. Theological Librarianship 13(1), pp.27-37.

Fiormonte, Domenico (2021). "Taxation against Overrepresentation? The Consequences of Monolingualism for Digital Humanities." Alternative Historiographies of the Digital Humanities edited by Dorothy Kim and Adeline Koh. Santa Barbara: Punctum Books, pp. 333–376.

Franz, Simone, Łopatka, Tomasz, Kunze, Gunther, Meyn, Niels, and Strupler, Néhémie (2022). Un/Doing Classification: Bibliothekarische Klassifikationssysteme zwischen Universalitätsanspruch und reduktionistischer Wissensorganisation. 027.7 Zeitschrift Für Bibliothekskultur / Journal for Library Culture 9(4). https://doi.org/10.21428/1bfadeb6.e3f3c686 

Horvath, Aliz, Cornelis van Lit, Cosima Wagner, and David Joseph Wrisley (2024). "Towards Multilingually Enabled Digital Knowledge Infrastructures: A Qualitative Survey Analysis." In Multilingual Digital Humanities edited by Lorella Viola and Paul Spence. London: Routledge, pp. 127-140.

Zaugg, Isabelle (2024). "Language Justice in the Digital Sphere." In Global Language Justice, edited by Lydia H. Liu, Anupama Rao, and Charlotte A. Silverman, 244–74. New York: Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/10.7312/liu-21038.22