Date
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Session Type
General: 60 min
Name
Whose Authority? Sustainable Organizational Change and Inclusive Descriptive Practices
Description

Commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is a core value of our institution, therefore this work is integral to everything we do. How does one build this commitment into daily work in a sustainable way? With our current library leadership heavily invested in these values, we as metadata practitioners are trying to integrate, in a sustainable and equitable way, our work within the broader organizational ecosystem. Our library’s Inclusive Descriptive Practices Task Force formed in 2020 and continues today with work primarily organized around four subgroups: Languages, Controlled Vocabularies, Context Statements/Content Warnings, and From Past to Best Practices. This group was founded with the conviction that organizational change requires collective action. While it began as an attempt to formalize and unify various efforts that were already taking place across the library, it has evolved as new members have joined and library leadership and institutional priorities have changed. We are confronting the places where our practices as catalogers or archivists diverge; all of us desire to improve our practice, but we use different tools, resources, and guidelines as prescribed by our professional standards. This session will explore tools and methodologies we have found effective, as well as challenges and roadblocks we have encountered.

Track
Data Management