Trouble In Paradise: Improving The Discoverability Of Circum-Caribbean Materials Through Enhanced Cataloguing Practices

 This thesis examines how the Circum-Caribbean region’s cultural and geographic complexity make it difficult to describe or index materials relevant to this region using mainstream authority controls available in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs). The majority of widely used controls in GLAMs have Western-centralised worldviews and are rigid in nature, thereby incapable of accommodating the fluidity necessary to accurately denote the complex Circum-Caribbean. This paper applies methodologies to the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names and the West Indian Postcard Collection at the Cambridge University Library’s Royal Commonwealth Society department to argue that expanding the vocabulary and applications of an authority control can improve the discoverability of collection materials pertinent to the Circum-Caribbean. My results and observations coupled with brief reviews of two bespoke authority controls lead to recommendations on how to improve authority controls, particularly how to decolonise them and improve their usability for non-Western places and cultures.