General description

Screenshot of “Feminist Search Tools”, a digital tool developed by the Feminist Search Tools Working Group based on the IHLIA LGBTI Heritage Collection, depicting an excerpt of the cluster “Sexuality”.
The graph at the center of the screenshot depicts the number of publications by publishers in the IHLIA Collection that contain a particular Homosaurus term. Results are depicted in forms of colored squares, whereby the colors indicate which cluster a particular publication is connected to.

Image Description

The variables on the y-axis list the 100 most encountered publishers in the IHLIA LGBTI Heritage collection and the variables on the x-axis the Homosaurus terms selected by the working group because of their assumed link to the cluster in question.
Placing the question “Why are the authors of the books I read so white, so male, so Eurocentric?”, at the center top of Feminist Search Tools as shown in the screenshot, the working group aims to draw attention to this question when evaluating the results depicted.

On the top left, users of Feminist Search Tools are given the option to chose from 5 different clusters: Race, Gender, Sexuality, Disability & Structural Oppression, whereby “Sexuality” is marked bold in this screenshot as it’s been selected as filter.
On the top right, one finds the key of the Feminist Search Tools, providing explanations for the different colors used in the depiction of the search results. Each color indicating if search results contain terms from a particular cluster: pink for the cluster “race”, purple for the cluster “gender”, red for the cluster “sexuality”, blue for the cluster “disability” and orange for the cluster structural oppression. Additionally, the key lists explanations for the expressions “crossed striked-through”, “terms in red”(letter color: red), USE, ADD, “(exclude)”, “(red link)”, “(to be filled in)” and “undefined”.

The graph depicts the search results in form of squares under each of the Homosaurus terms. In the screenshot the homosaurus term “homomannen” (gay men) seems to have the most publications by the publisher “Penguin”, as the accumulations of squares in the shape of a filled circle is mostly colored in red, with 1 purple square inbetween. The search results of the other publishers are not clearly visible and there seem to be no results for “seksuele identiteit” (sexual identity) and “seksuele minderheden” (sexual minorities). Under the search term “lesbische_vrouwen” (lesbian women), a pop-up text box is covering the search results and contains an explanation what terms the Feminist Search Tools is searching for when searching for this particular Homosaurus term. This is both linked to already existing connections made by IHLIA Heritage Collection when they created the Homosaurus plus interventions made by the Feminist Search Tools working group, taking “lesbische_vrouwen” (lesbian women) as an example. Here the search for instance included “homovrouwen” (gay women) and “potten”, both striked through, instead the term “lesbische vrouwen” (lesbian women) is adviced to be used, butches, femmes, kastpotten and “lesbische ouderen” (lesbian eldery people). Additionally, the Feminist Search Tools Working Group made the intervention, to also search for “vrouwen die seks hebben met vrouwen” (women that have sex with women), mati, “lesbisch feminisme” (lesbian feminism), “lesbianisme” (lesbianism), “lesbische beweging” (lesbian movement), “lesbische cultuur” (lesbian culture), “lesbische gemeenschap” (lesbian community) and “lesbische identiteit” (lesbian identity).