Feminist Search Engine

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In collaboration with Utrecht-based art & research collective Read-in Hackers & Designers developed a Feminist Search Tool*,–a digital interface that invites users to explore different ways of engaging with the records of the Utrecht University Library, putting forth the question: Why are the authors of the books I read so white, so male, so Eurocentric?.

The tool has been developed in the context of the project Unlearning My Library. Bookshelf Research and functions as an awareness-raising tool to stir conversations about the inclusion and exclusion mechanisms that are inherent to our current Western knowledge economy. To this end, the Feminist Search Tool invites us all to reflect about our own search inquiries, and how the latter may be directed by our own biases and omissions. More broadly, it raises the question about the different decisions taken that influence our searches: Who is taking responsibility for which part of the search process: we, the users, the researcher, the library, the algorithm, ect.? And how does this influence our search result?

The tool will be launched on the occasion of Zero Footprint Campus