The Importance of Metadata to Support DEIA: Free Workshop

Charged by the NISO Board with helping us to identify and prioritize concrete actions in support of DEIA in the information community, our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Committee started by carrying out a community survey. We received over 200 responses, and one of the main needs identified was better metadata in support of DEIA. 

As a first step toward addressing this need, the Committee decided to run a series of workshop/webinars, open to everyone in the information community, with the goal of both helping educate people about the importance of metadata for DEIA, and identifying specific ways that NISO could better support this.

The first event took place on October 4/5 and, like the upcoming ones, it was run twice to accommodate those working in all time zones. The two sessions were attended by more than 260 people in total, and were moderated by DEIA Committee Co-Chairs, Karim Boughida, University of Rhode Island Libraries and Maria Stanton, Atla. We were privileged to hear from three expert speakers — Treshani Perera, University of Kentucky, Merrilee Proffitt, OCLC Research Library Partnership, and Brian M. Watson, University of British Columbia School of Information and Homosaurus Editorial Board. Their talks generated a lot of engagement and discussion, and you can find a recording of the presentations on our Cadmore Media repository.

There’s still plenty of time to sign up for one or both of the remaining workshops, which will cover (respectively) metadata for accessibility and for indigenous knowledge and non-traditional outputs. We hope to see you there!

November 15: Workshop 2 - Metadata and Accessibility 

Keynote Speaker: George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium

Moderators: Michael Johnson, Benetch and Gabi Rundle, Emerald Publishing

December 6: Workshop 3 - Metadata and Indigenous Knowledge/Non-Traditional Outputs

Keynote Speaker(s): To be announced

Moderators: Camille Callison, University of the Fraser Valley, and Cindy Hohl, The Kansas City Public Library