Charge

Descriptive practice is never objective. While performed with the best intentions, metadata for CUL’s physical and digital materials are produced by humans with their own cultural backgrounds and competencies. This is not unique to CUL; library colleagues have long discussed the subjective nature of cataloging practice in terms of depth and accuracy of description, inclusion and exclusion of communities as well as linguistic barriers. Meanwhile, the materials we collect derive from diverse communities across the world and should serve diverse users in Ithaca and internationally.

To address these long-standing and complex practices, the Inclusive Descriptive Practice Task Force will work with colleagues across CUL as well as an Advisory Board composed of library users to:

• review similar efforts from colleagues across the international library community as well as community efforts beyond libraries; conduct a literature review and integrate these findings into the work of the task force wherever beneficial.

• create recommendations for expanding existing and implementing new methods of inclusion in our descriptive practice for physical collections (both archival and library practices) as well as digital collections (both born-digital and digitized). Note: this effort will engage with the recommendations of the Critical Cataloging Working Group and include outreach to user communities as a fundamental aspect of work;

• define expectations of linguistic diversity in our description, including the use of original script and transliteration;

• identify collections where either existing collection-level description, item-level description and/or subject terminology are insufficiently inclusive or have a strong Western bias; identify resource implications for remediating description of these collections and create action plans;
• recommend guidelines around labor practices and compensation for metadata production;
• establish a framework for evaluating, acting on, and responding to descriptive terms (e.g. subjects or names) that come to our attention as potentially problematic; and
• identify training opportunities for inclusive and/or culturally sensitive descriptive practices

This work will align with Cornell University’s policies and initiatives related to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, including efforts as part of Belonging@Cornell: https://diversity.cornell.edu/ , as well as CUL’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

Anticipated Deliverables

• Draft policy statement(s) for consideration by the Library Executive Group concerning each of the above referenced work areas
• Workflow(s) for how the above practices engage with stakeholders and how these efforts are coordinated
• Action plans for remediating existing description, including making more inclusive descriptive text and access points as well as interpreting works that are themselves racist, colonialist, or otherwise non-inclusive

Membership

• Kaitlyn Bloomquist
• Mary Campany
• Tabitha Cary
• Whitney Christopher
• Jenn Colt
• Julia Corrice
• Laura Daniels
• Claire Deng
• Eirva Diamessis
• Dianne Dietrich (co-chair)
• Katerina Dimitriadou-Shuster
• Marcie Farwell
• Steven Folsom
• Terri Jordan
• Jason Kovari (chair)
• Fredrika Loew
• Jackie Magagnosc
• Indica Mattson
• Margaret Nichols
• Nicholas Norton
• Elizabeth Parker
• Ben Wrubel
• Emily Zinger

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