Hi Code4Lib Community,
GitHub recently announced changes to its default branch name, from "master" to "main". This CNET article by Shelby Brown<https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-github-is-removing-coding-terms-like-master-and-slave/> covered these and other anti-racist terminology changes occurring in the larger dev community as proposed by Una Kravets, Google Chrome developer.

GitHub will not update existing repositories. For this reason, I suggest the following updates:

*       Update the name of the default branch of your code repositories' and your organizations' repositories from "master" to "main". It is easy to rename the default branch. I recommend these instructions written by Alexis Moody<https://dev.to/afrodevgirl/replacing-master-with-main-in-github-2fjf>. I followed these for my personal repositories, adding a git status, git pull beforehand, and it was very straightforward. For group or organization repositories, you may want to coordinate timing with other maintainers.

*       Update your documentation. If your documentation contains references to the "master" branch, these should be updated.

Your support in moving to terminology without historical baggage or racist symbolism would benefit present and future developers who fork or update code. It's also shorter! While this small update is not exhaustive of what we can do to be a more inclusive community, it would bring us into alignment with a decision made by GitHub, a platform Code4Lib uses that has taken a stand against racism.

Please contact me if you want a video tutorial demonstrating to do this, or if you would like me to add it as an issue in a Code4Lib community repository.

Thanks,
Julia Caffrey-Hill
Web Services Librarian
Towson University
Twitter: @jcaffreyhill