This page provides links to articles, best practices, vocabularies, guidelines, and other resources that offer guidance for incorporating inclusive metadata practices.
"Metadata creators must possess awareness of their own worldviews, and work at identifying where those views exclude other human experiences ..."
"Inclusive Description is description which recognizes that no archival function is neutral, including description, but that actions can be taken to remediate and avoid bias and harmful language in finding aids, catalog records, and other description."
--Society of American Archivists (n.d.)
Archives for Black Lives (A4BLiP)
Bias and Inclusivity in Metadata: Awareness and Approaches (Juliet Hardesty, 2019, webinar)
Creating metadata for equity, diversity, and inclusion (Smith-Yoshimura, 2018)
Guidelines for Inclusive and Conscientious Description (Lellman, Charlotte, et al., May 2020, Harvard University)
Inclusive Description (Society of American Archivists)
Inclusive Language (18F, U.S. General Services Administration)
Inclusive Metadata & Conscious Editing Resources (Sunshine State Digital Network Metadata Working Group)
Indigenous/LC/Wikidata Project (reconciling LCSH terms)
It's All In The Details: Implementing Inclusive Metadata — 2021 OA Week (Wintermute, 2021, Iowa State University)
Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources (The Trans Metadata Collective)
Metadata for Everyone: Inclusive Description at the Duke University Libraries (blog post)
Moving Forward With Equitable Metadata: Changing Exclusive Terminology (Digital NC blog post)
Searching for Black women in the archives: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (Audrey Altman, 2021)
Traditional Knowledge Labels (for Indigenous communities)
We Can Do Better: Making Our Metadata More Equitable (Digital NC blog post)
Beckman, L., Eaton, L., Ferguson, Y., Heilbrun, D., Lavender, R., Mackenzie, T., & Schubel, D. (2022). "Ethical and Anti-Oppressive Metadata: A Collaboration Between Catalogers and Archivists at George Mason University Libraries". Collaborative Librarianship, 13(1), Article 5.
Boczar, Jason, Bonita Pollock, Xiying Mi, and Amanda Yeslibas. 2021. “Bridging the Gap: Using Linked Data to Improve Discoverability and Diversity in Digital Collections.” Information Technology & Libraries 40 (4): 1–15. https://doi:10.6017/ital.v40i4.13063.
Bone, C. & Lougheed, B. (2018). Library of Congress Subject Headings Related to Indigenous Peoples: Changing LCSH for Use in a Canadian Archival Context, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 56:1, 83-95, DOI: 10.1080/01639374.2017.1382641
Campbell, Heather M., Christopher S. Dieckman, Wesley Teal, and Harriet E. Wintermute. (2022). “Improving Subject Headings for Iowa Indigenous Peoples.” Library Resources & Technical Services 66 (1) https://doi:10.5860/lrts.66n1.48.
Caswell, M., Migoni, A.A, Geraci, N., and Cifor, M. (2016). "'To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise': Community Archives and the Importance of Representation." Archives and Records (special issue on public history): 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2016.1260445
Chen, S. (2014). A holistic perspective on indigenous digital libraries in Taiwan. Presentation at 2014 IFLA World Library and Information Congress.
Cifor, M. & Rawson, K.J. (2022). "Mediating Queer and Trans Pasts: The Homosaurus as Queer Information Activism", Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2072753
Drabinski, E. (2013). Queering the catalog: Queer theory and the politics of correction. Library Quarterly I(2), 94-111.
Ewalt, J. M. (2019). Towards inclusive description: Reparations through community-driven metadata, New England Archivists Newsletter, 46:2, https://ecommons.udayton.edu/imri_faculty_publications/41/
Grogg, J. & Rosen, H. (2020). "Accessibility for Digital Materials". Serials Review, 46(2), 73-75, DOI: 10.1080/00987913.2020.1782653
Kaplan, E. (2000). "We Are What We Collect, We Collect What We Are: Archives and the Construction of Identity," American Archivist 63, pp. 126-151. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.63.1.h554377531233l05
Knight, F. T. (2022). "Term Circles: Using Linked Data as a Tool to Mitigate Colonial Subject Bias," Journal of Library Metadata, 22:1-2, 105-133, : 10.1080/19386389.2022.2051980
Liew, C. L. (2005). Cross-cultural design and usability of a digital library supporting access to Maori cultural heritage resources. In Design and usability of digital libraries: Case studies in the Asia Pacific (pp. 285-297). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing.
Littletree, S., & Metoyer, C. A. (2015). Knowledge organization from an indigenous perspective: The Mashantucket Pequot Thesaurus of American Indian Terminology Project. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 53(5-6), 640-657. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01639374.2015.1010113
Luke, S., Pezzoni, S. & Russell, W. (2022). “Towards More Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Representation in Metadata and Digitization: A Case Study". The Serials Librarian, 82:1-4, pp.55-62, https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2022.2040241
Maron, D., Missen, C., & Greenberg, J. (2014). “Lo-fi to hi-fi”: A new metadata approach in the third world with the eGranary Digital Library. Presentation from the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications. Retrieved from http://dcpapers.dublincore.org/pubs/article/view/3713
Olson, H. A. (2007). How we construct subjects: A feminist analysis. Library Trends 56(2), 509-541.
Rinn, Meghan R. (2018) Nineteenth-Century Depictions of Disabilities and Modern Metadata: A Consideration of Material in the P. T. Barnum Digital Collection, Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: Vol. 5, Article 1. Available at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol5/iss1/1
Sahadath, C. (2013). Classifying the margins: Using alternative classification systems to empower diverse and marginalized users. Feliciter 59(3) 15-17.
Serrao, J. (2019). Connecting Collections with Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Metadata, presented at the South Carolina Archival Association Annual Meeting in Newberry, South Carolina held October 25, 2019. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/lib_pres/179/
Walker, W. & Keenan, T. (2015). "Do You Hear What I See? Assessing Accessibility of Digital Commons and CONTENTdm". Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 27(2), pp. 69-87
Wood, S., Carbone, K., Cifor, M., Gilliland, A., & Punzalan, R. (2014). Mobilizing records: re-framing archival description to support human rights. Archival Science 14(3-4), 397-419. doi: 10.1007/s10502-014-9233-1
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