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historyhermann · 1 year

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Miss Hatchet, Kim Possible, the complexity of library classification, and technocratic libraries

Ms. Hatchett tells Kim that she has an overdue library book

Recently, I began watching Kim Possible for the first time, apart from one episode: "Overdue." I watched it before I began the series. When I first conceived this post, I thought that I would somehow change my opinion of Miss Hatchet. Long-time readers may recall I previously described her as a person who "rules the school library like a tyrant...[with] her own form of library organization." After watching the episode, I feel no differently about her as I did before. However, I would argue that her character and the plotline says a lot more about libraries than I had previously guessed, meaning that Hatchet is more than a smorgasbord of librarian stereotypes, especially when it comes to library classifications of materials within libraries themselves.

This post is reprinted from Pop Culture Library Review and Wayback Machine.

There is no doubt that this librarian is "wound pretty tight" as Ron, a friend of Kim Possible, and series protagonist with her, remarks later in the episode. She has strict rules, like having a zero tardiness policy when it comes to overdue books. She has an enormous amount of power in the school as she is able to suspend Kim from cheerleading because she has an overdue book! Yikes. All the students seem to fear her and she acts like a villain throughout the episode, first by making Kim shelve stacks upon stacks of books based on her own, and more complicated, library classification system, known as the Hatchet Decimal System (HDS). Second, she takes away Kim's communicator (equivalent to her cell phone) and makes her put adhesive labels on every book saying "property of MHS library." In the end, Ron appears to come to the rescue, returning the book, but it turns out that this is the incorrect one, as it releases evil spirits which terrify her and cause destruction to the library. Her fate after that is unknown. Presumably, Kim and Ron save her life, although that isn't shown on screen.

Even though she is one of the only Middleton High School staff employees shown in the show, Hatchet nothing much more than a basket of stereotypes harmful to librarians while acting like a supervillain of sorts, giving Kim busy work while in "library lockup," as she calls it. Nothing about her is redeemable. However, I would venture that the episode is pointing to something more: the complexity of library classification. This has been an argument that has been rightly pointed out about the Dewey Decimal Classification system (DDC) have made in the past. This is despite the fact that this library classification system organizes to materials by subject. It can be hard for those who don't know the intricacies of DDC, like ordinary library patrons, to understand how books are organized. [1]

In 2007, the Library of Congress warned of limiting the use of the number components field so that doesn't become "confusing and complicated." Some years earlier, scholars Luc Beaudoin, Marc-Antoine Parent, and Louis C. Vroomen described DDC as a huge and complex information hierarchy. [2] Additional classification systems have also been noted as complex. For instance, some said that the Library of Congress Classification System (LCC) [3] is more efficient and specific for new technical material and big collections but "more complex." Others described the effort by Belgians Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, who used the DDC as a basis, to create the "complex multidimensional indexing system" known as the Universal Bibliographic Repertory (UBR). [4]

The Hatchet Decimal System on a book binding on the left and the DDC on a book bindings on the right. The latter is from this image on Wikimedia.

To come back to the episode, I would say that the focus on a classification system that Hatchet made by herself is meant to point to the complexity of library classification systems in general and how they can be confusing for ordinary people, in this case Kim. Her system is clearly more complex than the DDC and perhaps that is part of the point of this episode, which was written by Jim Peterson, directed by Steve Loter (who directs many of the episodes in the series), and storyboarded by Eugene Salandra, Jennifer Graves & Robert Pratt. It is incredible that Hatchet has enough authority that she can create her own system for organizing books in the library, which has become "her natural habitat" as it states on her short Kim Possible fandom page. Many librarians would not have that ability as their actions would be hemmed in by school administrators, school boards, national and state library associations, which have their own codes of ethics.

As Anne Gooding-Call has pointed out, "librarians of color don’t necessarily have the same support that white librarians enjoy," with the MLIS and middling wages as a barrier to many. This is undoubtedly the case for Hatchet, who the school probably would have treated differently had she been Black, Latine, or Asian, for instance, as most of the librarian field is composed of White female librarians. She would not have the social support of other White people, even if the students feared her. In one way, the library that Hatchet occupies appears to be a white space, meaning somewhere that Black people may be reluctant to ask questions or use resources. On another, since students generally fear her, no one, of any race, may be asking her questions or for any help. Instead, they are presumably trying to spend the least amount of time in the library as possible, as they are afraid of her. I would even argue that if she wasn't White, she couldn't be as mean and menacing to the students, at least I would hope that would be the case.

Beyond this, there is no doubt in my mind that Hatchet obviously blatantly violates tenets 1, 6, 7, 8, and 9, at minimum, of the ALA's Code of Ethics. This is not unique to her, as others are even worse offenders. [5] For instance, Francis Clara Censorsdoll in Moral Orel dipped "objectionable" books in kerosene and set them on fire. Cletus Bookworm in Rocky & Bullwinkle had no problem with an armed man taking two patrons of the library hostage. In fact, he encouraged their capture and applauded it. That's just two of the most egregious examples I can think of, although there are many others. Gooding-Call says that librarians are mostly "sincere people who mean well...eager to grow and improve" who can become "vehicles of empowerment." Hatchet does not seem to be this at all. Instead, she seems overly strict and harsh, not wanting to improve. She is the female equivalent of Steven Barkin, a former U.S. Army Ranger, who has a gruff, no-nonsense, attitude, and is abrasive with students in the series. Unlike Barkin, it is unlikely she has PTSD from wartime experiences.

There is the additional issue that the DDC system and other cataloging approaches were "designed in a racist and white-centered system," [6] building upon my post in May about fictional acceptance of the DDC. Hatchet probably didn't care much about this. Instead, what matters to her was lording this power over other people in a menacing way, or at least it appears that way. She says as much, as she declares to Kim that "There will come a day when you forget to return a book and I'll be waiting for you." It gives you the chills. Was she so self-centered that she created her own classification system? Did she care that DDC is, as Emily Ruth Brown points out, built around adult disciplines, is proprietary, and is negatively affected by changes in technology? We can't know for sure, as she is a one-time character who never re-appears in the series. This isn't surprising, given that Western animation has a habit of easily playing into librarian stereotypes, although this may be changing, with libraries shown much more positively in anime.

As I expected, not one person has written a fan fiction about Ms. Hatchet in Kim Possible on Archive of Our Own, even though it could make an interesting story to see things from her perspective. Clearly her actions toward Kim, and presumed other students, are irredeemable. Even so, she may be under a lot of stress as the only librarian of the entire Middleton High School library, at least the only one we see as the audience. If she had been trying to get Kim to do extra work, like shelving books, then this was definitely not the way to go about it. There are the other library scenes in the series, but she never re-appears. She is never given a chance to redeem herself or for the audience to see who she is as a person. She is just a bunch of stereotypes all shoved into one person. I admit that I may be reading too much into this 11-minute episode. At the same time, this episode may be more than what it appears to be on the surface and interconnects with issues surrounding library classification systems and even broader issues within the library field itself.

Ms. Hatchet pushes a book cart piled high with books

When I first composed and finished this post in later February 2022, my last paragraph was the end of the article. However, I see Hatchet's classification in a new light after reading a chapter by Rafia Marza and Maura Seale about White masculinity and "the technocratic library of the future" in Topographies of Whiteness. Although she is no technocrat, and neither are any of those on List of fictional librarians I have put together for this blog as most are either "old-school", "traditional", or "magical" for the most part, her complex HDS is akin to technocratic ideas. Marza and Seale note that as information technology has become a bigger part of librarianship in the 1990s and 2000s, the White female librarian has been replaced by ideas from Silicon Valley, with "technological solutions" which will supposedly free us. They further said that such a focus on technology as a "solution to complex social problems" is central to technocratic ideas, which is characterized by its "impartial, apolitical rationality," with those who are technocrats interests in politics rather than efficiency, thinking that technological fixes can be universal. However, this ideology is bound up in White supremacy because White men have historically claimed rationality and White masculinity has been able to function as the "universal form," while it can only claim to be neutral and objective due to Whiteness. At the same time it upholds patriarchy as well. [7] This interlinks with the historic investment of libraries in Whiteness and faulty notions such as rationality, objectivity, neutrality, and neoliberal tendencies. The latter is promoted by two ALA initiatives: Libraries Transform and the Center of the Future of Libraries (launched in 2015).

Such initiatives, Marza and Seale argue, engage internet-centrism, an idea described by Morozov as the idea that everything is changed and there needs to be fixes, while technology is permanent, fixed, has an inherent nature, and possess agency as it exists "outside of history." They are interconnected to technological solutionism, the idea that all complex social problems can be neatly defined and have definite solutions or processes that "can be easily optimized," even though this can undermine support for more demanding or stimulating reform projects. [8] This comes with the assumption that it is neutral and objective, even though it is anything but that. This is reinforced by a focus on digital and quantitative skills, with an individual and "entrepreneurial" worker as the default, who are often male and White, especially when it comes to those in Silicon Valley, who are used as a basis for these "necessary" skill sets. At the same time, care and emotion work, service work, manual labor, and so on are seen as "feminized labor" At the same time, libraries are seen as akin those businesses in the so-called sharing economy, with racial prejudice as ingrained in such an economy, and labor of people of color and White women not visible due to the emphasis on technology and de-emphasis on the labor behind the technology itself, with its deadly environmental and labor consequences. [9]

While labor of those causing the technological solutions to be workable is erased, so is any quiet or reflective work, like that portrayed in Kokoro Library, while fewer workers are told to take on more work, leading to burnout. Additionally, libraries are viewed as platforms, like the sites created by Silicon Valley, which ends up prioritizing monetization and obscures any libraries seen as "non-technological," pay is low, and librarianship itself is devalued while technocratic ideology is risen, and the value of library degrees has declined while information technology is seen as even more paramount. This is only strengthened with a focus on "short-term results," market demands, just-in-time services, efficiency, and "return on investment," even as emotional labor of women and physical labor of people of color is needed to make sure libraries, and society as a whole, function. In the end, such technocratic ideas are embedded in systems of privilege, while technology itself is subject to the same inequities as the rest of the world, with a necessary situated and historic understanding of technology and librarianship, and ways that both of those concepts "intersect with dominant conceptions of white masculinity." [10]

Hatchet clearly does not embody any of this technocratic ideology, nor has any librarian I've ever seen in any popular culture I've come across to date. However, her ideas would fit right in with today's technocratic push in librarianship, with their own inherent complexity. In fact, if the episode was to be done again today, it would not be a stretch to see Hatchet using robots to shelve the books in their own complex way, or even sitting at her desk while she ordered a robot to snatch Kim and bring her to the library in punishment for an overdue book. That may be a bit extreme, but the point is that her ideas fit within those who espouse technocratic ideas about libraries at the present. Ultimately, I enjoyed reexamining this episode and I look forward to your comments, criticisms, and anything else you'd like to leave in response to this post. Until next time!

Notes

[1] Erin Sterling, "The Case of the Clunky Classification: The Elusive Graphic Novel," May 2010, accessed February 25, 2022; "Dewey Decimal System," ScienceDirect, accessed February 25, 2022; "Information Literacy Tutorial: Finding Books," University of Illinois Library, University of Illinois, LibGuides, Aug. 7, 2018, accessed February 25, 2022; Melinda Buterbaugh, "Lesson Three: Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and Call Numbers," Library Practice 101, accessed February 25, 2022; "Teach Me How To Dewey," Hillsborough County, Florida, Dec. 13, 2017, accessed February 25, 2022; "Why I Would Use Dewey," Technical Processes for Education Media, Oct. 29, 2011, accessed February 25, 2022.

[2] Luc Beaudoin, Marc-Antoine Parent, and Louis C. Vroomen (1996), "Cheops: A Complex Explorer for Complex Hierarchies," IEEE, p. 87; "MARC DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 2007-DP06," Library of Congress, Jun. 6, 2007, accessed February 25, 2022.

[3] Not the same as the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) which has "been actively maintained since 1898 to catalog materials held at the Library of Congress" and said to be the "most widely adopted subject indexing language in the world." LCSH describes contents systemically, while LCC is a library classification system. Its also different from the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN), a serially based system of numbering cataloged record.

[4] Robert McCoppin, "Who's killing the Dewey decimal system?," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 18, 2011, accessed February 25, 2022; Gerry le Roux, "Melvil Dewey and the classification of knowledge," Science Lens, Dec. 10, 2012, accessed February 25, 2022; ; "How the index card launched the information age," Multimediaman, Sept. 10, 2016, accessed February 25, 2022.

[5] Discounting the shushers, the most extreme include the librarian in multiple episodes of Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil, Rita Loud in a Timon & Pumbaa episode ("Library Brouhaha"), Mr. Snellson in a Mysticons episode ("Happily Never After"), Librarian in a Big City Greens episode ("Quiet Please"), Librarian in a Courage the Cowardly Dog episode ("Wrath of the Librarian"), and Bat Librarian in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode ("Mystic Library").

[6] "Conducting research through an anti-racism lens," University of Minnesota Libraries, University of Minnesota, Feb. 15, 2022, accessed February 25, 2022. Others have claimed that DDC can be reformed with librarians who have "deeply held values of equity, diversity, and inclusion" while others have pointed to racism within the DDC, by Dewey himself, noted Dewey was a sexual harasser and a clearly a bigot without any question. Even conservatives have pointed out that Dewey is ingrained in librarianship and there is no escaping him.

[7] Rafia Mirza and Maura Seale, "Who Killed the World?: White Masculinity and the Technocratic Library of the Future" within Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), pp. 175-177. They also say on page 175 that in the early 20th century, librarians participated in "civilizing" and assimilating the "tired, huddled masses into American democracy" as long as those people could become White.

[8] Mirza and Seale, "Who Killed the World?", pp. 177-181. Libraries Transform describes itself as "spreading the word about the impact libraries and librarians make every day...[and] advocat[ing] for the value of librarianship" but the about page almost reads like a corporate webpage, and not surprising as Overdrive is the lead sponsor, with other big sponsors including Capital One, Dollar General, Biblioboard, and SAGE Publishing. The same can be said about the webpage of the Center of the Future of Libraries.

[9] Ibid, 181-5.

[10] Ibid, 186-192.

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