Screenshot of BUAM online database
Towards inclusive metadata: BUAM Statement of Purpose
Revised Spring 2023
Claire L. Kovacs, BUAM Curator of Collections and Exhibitions
Eliana Ellerton, BUAM Intern - Collections Management/’23, History
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museum)’s metadata and resource description has traditionally encouraged a “neutral” vocabulary and narrative style that too often reinforces the societal power structures that conform to expectations of the hegemonic default (white, male, heterosexual, gender-normative, upper-middle class, global north – just to name a few). This BUAM-specific project aims to begin the process of repair and excavation through transparency, iteration, collaboration, and consultation. As Jarrett M. Drake writes:
The truly transformative principle that is needed for archival practice and archival description cannot come from one person or from one invite-only forum, but such a principle necessarily must develop organically, slowly, and anti-oppressively with a radical cross-section of academic, disciplinary, racial, ethnic, gender, cultural and class backgrounds represented.[1]
This project will necessarily be slow and measured and will eventually include all points of metadata creation: processing, review, remediation, and reprocessing to ensure that it “‘accurately, appropriately, and respectfully’ represents marginalized and underrepresented persons and contexts through descriptive metadata practices.”[2] It will also strive to, as described by the Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia project, "[b]e mindful that terminology changes over time, so description will be an iterative process."[3]
As we look to reframe the process of metadata creation, queer theory provides a useful framework because it challenges the idea that metadata can ever be corrected once and for all. It pushes against the idea of fixed categories, arguing that this framework of metadata creation “…froze identities in time and universalized them, erasing the real differences that accompany [identity] on the scales of time and place…Rather than taking these identities as stable and fixed, queer theory sees these identities as shifting and contextual.”[4] Queer theory instead encourages us to be “ethically and politically engaged on behalf of [those with] marginal knowledge formations and identities who quite reasonably expect to be able to locate themselves in the [collections].”[5]
Community-based collaboration and consultation will also inform our process. As Terry Cook points out:
Community-based archiving involves…a shift in core principles, from exclusive custodianship and ownership of archives to shared stewardship and collaboration; from dominant-culture language, terminology, and definitions to sensitivity to the ‘other’ and as keen an awareness of the emotional, religious, symbolic, and cultural values that records have to their communities as of their administrative and juridical significance. These changes challenge us to stop seeing community archiving as something local, amateur, and of limited value to the broader society, and to start recognizing that community-based archiving is often a long-standing and well-established praxis from which we can learn much.[6]
Without consultation and collaboration with communities, the process might inadvertently introduce additional issues to the metadata process. As A. Matienzo points out, “Without thought, without conversation, and without vulnerability on the part of those of you with good intentions, our process of correction can simultaneously introduce and spackle over its own violence.”[7] We can inadvertently share information that is private, use language that is inappropriate and/or inaccessible, or gloss over parts of identity that are important to the maker(s) due to the biases that the creator of metadata brings to the table. It is important for us to: examine our own privilege, positionality, and biases; think about the language we use; consider how we use language; and decentralize the process of creating metadata.
Acknowledgments:
We would like to thank the following Binghamton departments and offices for their input on drafts of this project: Q Center, Multicultural Resources Center, Services for Students with Disabilities, and the Binghamton Library Special Collections and University Archive.
Citations:
[1] Jarrett M. Drake, “RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description,” On Archivy (blog), April 7, 2016, https://medium.com/on-archivy/radtech-meets-radarch-towards-a-new-principle-for-archives-and-archival-description-568f133e4325.
[2] Annie Tang et al., “Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description of Marginalized Histories,” n.d., 56. Also cites “Decolonizing Description: Changing... | ERA,” accessed October 6, 2022, https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/91ab16fe-5a03-4c10-b051-29c7caf0b57f.
[3] Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia, “Archives for Black Lives in Philly,” June 16, 2022, https://github.com/a4blip/A4BLiP.
[4] Emily Drabinski, “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction,” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 83, no. 2 (2013): 94–111, https://doi.org/10.1086/669547. In the original quote, Drabinski uses “same-sex sexuality,” but this idea can be applied to interlocking identities as a whole.
[5] Drabinski. In the original quote, Drabinski used “library,” but this can be applied to GLAM collections as a whole.
[6] Terry Cook, “Evidence, Memory, Identity, and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms,” Archival Science 13, no. 2–3 (June 2013): 95–120, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-012-9180-7.
[7] M. A. Matienzo, “To Hell With Good Intentions: Linked Data, Community, and the Power to Name,” 2015, https://matienzo.org/2016/to-hell-with-good-intentions/.
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