DEIA Resources and Websites

Materials Referenced During October 4 Webinar: Metadata to Support DEIA

The following resources and websites were referenced by speakers Treshani Perera, Merrilee Proffitt, and Brian M. Watson, as well as participants during our October 4 Metadata to Support DEIA webinar. 

• A Code of Ethics for Catalogers - At the request of their membership and for the benefit of all staff creating, sharing, enriching & maintaining metadata, the cataloguing communities of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom were tasked with compiling a Code of Ethics for Cataloguers.
• Zotero: Equitable Knowledge Organization Library - Equitable Knowledge Organization
• Towards respectful and inclusive description by Merrilee Proffitt - OCLC Research Blog entry dated December 17, 2020
• CritCat.org: Critical Cataloging in Galleries, Archives, Libraries, Museums, and Special Collections - A movement of cultural heritage workers who work to bring social justice, radical empathy, and outreach work into their everyday practice. This site aims to serve as a resource for catalogers and the cataloging-curious.
• Digital by Dartmouth Library: Change the Subject, 2019 Documentary - Documentary film about a group of Dartmouth students who challenged anti-immigrant language in the Library of Congress subject headings.  
• OCLC Research: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiatives: Reimagine Descriptive Workflows - With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project Reimagine Descriptive Workflows seeks to unpack and address these harmful practices by convening a diverse group of experts, practitioners, and community members to determine ways of improving descriptive practices, tools, infrastructure, and workflows in libraries and archives.
• OCLC Statement, Advancing Racial Equity - OCLC has organized a diverse group of experts, practitioners, and community members to explore the opportunities and challenges of implementing antiracist and inclusive language in metadata descriptions.
• List of Statements on Bias in Library and Archives Description - This list includes statements about problematic language in both description and resources themselves, as statements about resources will frequently discuss the description of those resources.
• Native Land - The organization strives “to map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages across the world in a way that goes beyond colonial ways of thinking in order to better represent how Indigenous people want to see themselves.”
• Harmful Content in Library and Archives Collections Policy - From the University of Missouri - Kansas City.
• Landing Page: Trans Metadata Collective - The goal of this organization is to develop a set of best practices for the description and classification of gender nonconforming information resources.
• The Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s: Anti-Racist Description Resources - A loose association of archivists, librarians, and allied professionals in the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley area responding to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement.
• Trove: Australia's free online research portal - A warning provided to users reads “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that Trove contains images, voices or names of deceased persons in photographs, websites, film, audio recordings or printed material. Some material contains terms that reflect authors’ views, or those of the period in which the item was written or recorded, but may not be considered appropriate today. These views are not necessarily the views of the National Library of Australia or Trove Partners. While the information may not reflect current understanding, it is provided in an historical context.” 
• Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) Discovery Subject Remapping - In an effort to improve the subject terms used in TRLN’s discovery layer to better represent diverse populations, and to change existing subject terms that may be exclusionary or divisive, the Metadata Team is collecting suggestions to overlay existing problematic subject headings with alternative vocabulary terms.
• Inclusive Terminology: Guide and Glossary for the Cultural Heritage Sector - From the National Library of Scotland. The Guide is designed to help cultural heritage professionals with the task of identifying and addressing discriminatory language and harmful materials that appear not only in archival collections, b ut across any catalogues, finding aids, educational resources, or websites. 
• Book Industry Communication: THEMA - Thema is a multilingual subject category scheme designed to meet the needs of publishers, retailers and trade intermediaries in all sectors of the global book publishing business.
• Engaging in “Difficult Conversations” on race: lessons learned from an RLP team practice group by Merrilee Proffitt - Blog entry on the OCLC Research Blog, dated March 2, 2021.
• Concerned Archivists Alliance: On With Your Headings (Part One) posted by Anna Clutterbuck and Concerned Archivists Alliance: On With Your Headings (Part Two) - A two-part guest blog series on Library of Congress Subject Headings and social justice was co-authored by Netanel Ganin, Metadata Coordinator at Brandeis University and Catherine Oliver, Metadata & Cataloging Services Librarian at Northern Michigan University. 
• Library Services Centre (LSC) Blog: Indigenous Subject Headings - LSC offers libraries the option of receiving topical subject headings that are more respectful of indigenous peoples instead of, or in addition to, the professional-standard headings in LCSH and CSH, which currently use colonial language.
• The Homosaurus - An international linked data vocabulary of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) terms. This vocabulary is intended to function as a companion to broad subject term vocabularies, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions are encouraged to use the Homosaurus to support LGBTQ research by enhancing the discoverability of their LGBTQ resources.
• NCPWG (Name Change Policy Working Group) - This page serves as a knowledge and resource base for the working group, interested individuals, and others. It contains resources for authors who want to update their name on previously published work, resources for publishers who are working to introduce a name change policy and a list of articles and press releases that cite our working group or individual members.
• White Supremacy Culture (DismantlingRacism.org) - This is a list of characteristics of white supremacy culture that show up in our organizations. Culture is powerful precisely because it is so present and at the same time so very difficult to name or identify.
• FAST - FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) is derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and is one of the library domains most widely used subject terminology schemas. The development of FAST has been a collaboration of OCLC Research and the Library of Congress.