The Los Angeles Public Library is dedicated to making our collections widely accessible to the public, and publishes selected historical materials from our special collections online. Some of this content may depict historical events that are upsetting or difficult to view.

Tolerance and acceptability of language and content can change over time. Content or descriptions associated with our collection materials may contain historical language or culturally sensitive content now recognized as inappropriate for publication without meaningful context or consultation with relevant communities.

When conducting research using our special collections, library users may encounter harmful language due to the following practices:

• When cataloging materials, LAPL staff retain the language of the original item where required by descriptive standards: original language is transcribed in the title and publication fields, elsewhere in a record this language is indicated with the use of quotation marks.
• In areas with greater flexibility, LAPL staff make choices about what language to use when describing not just the materials, but the people and groups who created or are represented in them. We are dedicated to describing people and groups accurately, respectfully, and in a way that is not harmful or offensive. Since many of our catalog records and finding aids were created years or decades ago, instances of harmful descriptions may appear. We recognize the need for re-description, which is an ongoing process that will take time.
• LAPL uses the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM), Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) Controlled vocabularies to standardize searching across our catalog and digital library. We are aware that some terms in these vocabularies are outdated and/or harmful, and we support the various efforts underway within library and archives communities to update and change these terms.

The Los Angeles Public Library is engaging in ongoing work to generate ethical and inclusive description for special collections in a way that balances the preservation of histories with sensitivity to community representation and how materials are presented to users.