Merrilee Proffitt
Senior Manager, OCLC Research Library Partnership
OCLC
Camille Callison
University Librarian, University of the Fraser Valley and Chair and Respectful Terminology Platform Project Co-Lead, National Indigenous Knowledge & Language Alliance (NIKLA)
Tāłtān Nation
Stacy Allison-Cassin
Assistant Professor, Dalhousie University and Chair, Teaching and Learning Community and Respectful Terminology Platform Project Co-Lead, National Indigenous Knowledge & Language Alliance (NIKLA)
Métis Nation of Ontario
Reimagine Descriptive Workflows (RDW) was a community-informed project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that took place in 2021, and which was structured to surface issues and to identify opportunities to effect lasting change in descriptive practices. Among goals set by the participants were to: acknowledge a need to change the current system; identify opportunities to engage in collaborative problem-solving; and develop concrete approaches to enable reimagined descriptive metadata practices. A report that documents the convening and its findings, Reimagine Descriptive Workflows: A Community-informed Agenda for Reparative and Inclusive Descriptive Practice, reflects that “power and bias in collections is hard coded from the beginning of the descriptive workflow process,” and that powerful naming and labeling systems, which include content standards and data communication formats, “can create systemic imbalances beyond the inherent problems of labeling and description.” This project briefing will focus on a number of efforts that have taken place between 2022 and 2024 that go beyond addressing individual subject headings and that have been focused on the difficult work of repairing existing systems and workflows (such as those provided by OCLC) and creating new systems (such as the Mellon-funded, Indigenous-led National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance Respectful Terminology Platform Project) in order to disrupt a cycle of harm in library descriptive practices.
https://www.nikla-ancla.com/
https://www.nikla-ancla.com/respectful-terminology
https://www.oclc.org/research/areas/community-catalysts/reimagine-descriptive-workflows.html
https://www.oclc.org/research/publications/2022/reimagine-descriptive-workflows.html