The socially responsive design for a library catalogue and thesaurus in a non-profit community organization (Toronto, Canada)

Abstract

The thesaurus was developed for a library catalogue in a legal aid clinic in Toronto (Canada). This organization assists low-income injured workers with worker’s compensation claims appeals. A small non-profit with limited resources, it has been actively engaged for nearly fifty years in advocacy and law reform. Its commitment to social justice is also advanced through its work in public legal education, participatory research and community organization, including support of self-help groups. The library serves as an archive of the social history of injured workers’ movement in Ontario, as well as a working law library. The library collection has been developed since the clinic’s establishment in 1969. It includes not only commercially published literature, but also a substantial proportion of grey literature covering a unique range of materials on workers’ compensation in Ontario, the struggles, historical and current, to improve the system and its impact on injured workers’ lives and well-being.

The library catalogue is online and made available to the public through a link on a website for injured workers. It is intended to be easily maintained by a community organization that may not have a full-time librarian and/or professional cataloguer. All cataloguing is original and full-level, and the bibliographic records also include tables of contents and annotations to improve access to materials through keyword search. All records are also indexed with subject terms drawn from a customized thesaurus, at...