July 5, 2022

ARTchivist's Notebook: An unexpected resource for DEI in metadata

Style Guides: An unexpected resource for DEI in metadata

(Screenshot of a slide from our Society of American Archivists Reparative Description Webinar)

Last month, I had the honor of co-teaching (with Stephanie Luke) an SAA webinar on reparative description for archives. For the uninitiated, reparative description is the practice of correcting or updating library and archives catalogs and finding aids to more accurately and respectfully represent the people described therein. This might mean updating or replacing derogatory terms, writing contextual notes to mitigate harm, or editing overly laudatory language describing collection creators and donors.

As part of the course, we discussed how to research appropriate terminology to describe various facets of identity such as gender, race, religion, etc. While first-person knowledge of the community you are describing is best, it's not usually possible; we can't be expected to know how every community or person who appears in our collections would describe themselves, and in most cases we can't ask them, as many donors and subjects have passed on or are unidentified.

Approaching our work with cultural humility—admitting what we don't know and being open to listening and learning—is a baseline. Scholarly research is certainly recommended, but not all archivists have easy access to the resources of a university library. Setting up focus groups and advisory boards is a best practice, but is often expensive and time-consuming.

Earlier this year, as I was building a custom social identity taxonomy, it occurred to me that tools from my other career in journalism might help.

Many advocacy and professional groups maintain style guides, or recommendations for journalists on how to write about various groups of people. These guides are succinct, glossary-style lists that provide definitions, guidance, and summaries of the issues around a particular term. If their advice was good enough for the daily news, why not use it in archives?

As part of the resources for the course, I compiled a list of online style guides around various identity facets. These guides are more up-to-date than widely used library vocabularies like those from the Library of Congress. Some of them, like Homosaurus (which is a full-blown vocabulary, not really a style guide), are even provided as linked open data. I'm providing this list to my newsletter subscribers to support you in your own reparative description projects. I hope it's helpful!

• General

  • Conscious Style Guide

  • Diversity Style Guide

  • APA Style Guide, American Psychological Association

• Disability & Health

  • Glossary of Disability Terms, North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities

  • Disability Language Style Guide, National Ctr. on Disability and Journalism

  • Words Matter - Terms to Use and Avoid When Talking About Addiction, National Institute on Drug Abuse

• Gender & Sexual Orientation

  • Gender, Sex, and Sexual Orientation (GSSO) ontology

  • GLAAD Media Reference Guide, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

  • Homosaurus, Digital Transgender Archive

• Immigration

  • Journalist Style Guide, Immigrant Defense Project

• Indigeneity

  • AUSTLANG, Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander vocabularies

  • British Columbia First Nations Subject Headings, XWI7XWA Library, First Nations House of Learning

  • World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, Minority Rights International

• Race & Ethnicity

  • Racial Equity Tools Glossary

  • The Power of Words, Japanese American Citizens League

  • Terminology, Densho (Japanese American digital archive)

  • Cultural Competence Handbook, National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists

• Religion

  • The Pluralism Project (Glossary of terms for religious groups), Harvard University

  • Religion and Public Life Glossary of Terms, Harvard University

  • The World’s Muslims Glossary, Pew Research Center

This list is by no means comprehensive. Additional resources on bias in metadata are available on my website. If you have some style guides or other resources you'd like to share, please let me know! Language is always evolving and I am always learning and adding to my list.

---

Thanks for reading! If you have any comments or questions about this issue, please feel free to get in touch. Or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter @SharonMizota.

ARTchivist's Notebook is an occasional newsletter musing on the intersection of archives, art, and social justice by me, Sharon Mizota, DEI metadata consultant and art writer.

I help museums, archives, libraries, and media organizations transform and share their metadata to achieve greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. Contact me to discuss your metadata project today.