Paper short abstract:

Against the abstraction of information from physical data servers, how might information workers might think more about the physicality of their labor?

Paper long abstract:

Library cataloging metadata systems might be imagined as a back and forth of water-power infrastructure and lived experiences. Users of library platforms take up space in colonial frameworks. The environmental impacts of cataloging are obscure. The future of cataloging, the Library of Congress's proposed BIBFRAME ontology, increases centralization to reduce waste, while maintaining ideological predilections that are extractivist. This warrants discussion of responsibilities in relation to material and energy use, in terms of environmental impact and human affect.