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Do not use titles like Mr./Mrs./Ms., unless it would clarify the identity of someone whose first name is unknown. When additional information is needed to differentiate between family members with the same last name, include their first name.
Example:
Together, Robert H. and Suzanne W. Fletcher served as co-directors of the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) training center from 1986 to 1990 at the UNC School of Medicine. The Fletchers co-founded and led the CRN Scholars Program from 2007 to 2012. Suzanne Fletcher’s research focused on breast cancer screening and prevention as well as clinical epidemiology; Robert Fletcher’s research focused on colon cancer prevention, clinical epidemiology, and the effectiveness of peer review in academic journals. (Robert H. and Suzanne W. Fletcher papers, 1952-2015)
Follow the guidance below for using identity terms in narrative description fields and subject headings:
Narrative description fields
If you describe a person’s identity using a term that may not be generally preferred by members of that identity group today, provide an explanatory note to document your efforts (Rinn) or to clarify your reason for using that term. Avoid imprecise, anachronistic, or outdated terminology, paying particular attention to identity and medical terms (A4BLIP, Bolding). If your scope and content note, biographical note, or administrative history employ outdated, pejorative, or offensive terms that are taken directly from the records, include the current equivalent term(s) in parentheses.
Subject headings
Given the conservatism and limitations of Library of Congress Subject Headings, it may be preferable to prioritize broad subject access over precise identity or medical terminology when assigning subject headings (A4BLIP, Berry, Bolding, Bolding2, Rinn, Robinson-Sweet). If a relevant subject heading is harmful or pejorative, consider using a locally-devised heading instead (Boyd). Explain your choice in an explanatory processing note.
Provide context (in the form of a processing note) for any outdated or non-preferred terms used in description or as subject headings (A4BLIP). The sample statement below may be used and/or modified as appropriate:
Recognizing that historical medical terms do not always completely or directly map to contemporary terms, that historical terms can be offensive or inaccurately characterize a condition, and that the presence of both historical and contemporary terms may be useful for researcher discovery, the archivist has attempted to employ historical terms as they appear in the context of the collection in the description below, along with contemporary terms in parentheses.
Examples:
His areas of research included shell shock, dementia praecox (schizophrenia), and the pathologic sources of mental illness. (E. E. Southard papers, processed by Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook)
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Throughout her career, Avery studied lung biochemistry, surface tension, and pulmonary physiology. She is known for her discovery of pulmonary surfactant while a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. She has been awarded numerous honors, including the National Medal of Science in 1991. (Mary Ellen Avery Papers, processed by Meghan Bannon Kerr and Jessica Sedgwick)
Counterexamples:
A man with a mission for using his considerable wealth and intellectual expertise for the good of mankind, Gamble devoted his life to "The Great Cause"--his goal of making each and every child birth the result of a conscious decision on the part of responsible parents. (Clarence Gamble papers, legacy finding aid conversion)
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File contains postmortem photographs of individuals who died by suicide, apparently collected by Stearns for research. (Albert Warren Stearns papers, processed by Bryan Sutherland)
Works Cited
Anti-Racist Description Resources---. Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s Anti-Racist Description Working Group, Oct. 2019, https://archivesforblacklives.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/ardr_final.pdf.
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1. Where did I get the information? (Wisser)
Would donors, sellers, custodians, creators, subjects, or users agree with the source(s)? How does my cultural identity affect the description? (Tang)
2. What system am I using? (Wisser)
Does it reinforce white, male supremacy? (Tang)
3. Who are my users? (Wisser)
Who are my creators and subjects, and have they been marginalized/maligned in the historic record? (Tang)
4. What format-specific details are there? (Wisser)
Would my users, creators, or subjects agree with the chosen format details? The styling? (Tang)
5. Does my description “accurately, appropriately, and respectfully” (Farnel, et al., “Decolonizing Description”) represent marginalized and underrepresented persons? (Tang)
Some of Tang’s recommendations for small-scale remediation
On-demand or as-you-go remediation.
Ask reading room users to assess finding aids, guides, or catalog records as they work.
Don’t automatically ask your token [blank] coworker.
Discuss/train colleagues in cultural literacy.
Do your due diligence. Research!
Boyd, Kyle. (2020, April). Visibility for Disability Digitization Project. Presented at the virtual meeting of Digital Commonwealth.
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Conservative creator-focused approach to privacy for disability rights collections:
Was this intended to be public or not? Was creator public about their disability?
Reached out to living 3rd parties for permission to digitize
Takedown policy
Metadata:
People-first language (refer to person first, disability second)
Ex. “person with disabilities,” not “disabled person”
Ex. “uses a wheelchair,” not “wheelchair-bound”
Preferred terminologies for some individuals
Deaf vs. deaf
Deaf refers to a community of people that use ASL.
deaf is common term, not just those who use ASL.
Outdated or offensive terms: use modern terms except in organizations’ names
Local headings where LCSH isn’t sufficient
Will sometimes use an outdated LCSH term if a modern term is unavailable. But not if the outdated LCSH term is offensive---will use local term instead.
Know that different members of a group may prefer different terms.
Drake, Jarrett M. “RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description.” Medium, 7 Apr. 2016, https://medium.com/on-archivy/radtech-meets-radarch-towards-a-new-principle-for-archives-and-archival-description-568f133e4325.
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Caswell, Michelle. “Dusting for Fingerprints: Introducing Feminist Standpoint Appraisal.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies. Vol. 3, 2020, https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/113.
Description
Privileges creator; is there evidentiary value to original order?
Need to center evidence of racism, slavery, etc.
Access
Who benefits from access?
Consider trauma, indigenous practices/uses, etc. See Protocols for Native American Archival Materials, Accessibility and Use: http://www2.nau.edu/libnap-p/protocols.html#Accessibility.
Preservation
Community archives; precariousness of archives
Destroying records destroys opportunities for justice
Name perpetrators—what if KKK rolls were digitized and searchable like census records on Family Search or Ancestry.com?
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Scientific names are inherently colonial
She was “shocked at how little [the collection] has essentially no indigenous nomenclature in any of their database of all the plants”. She then brought up a valid point that “the whole concept of an herbarium is inherently colonial because it essentially it stems from explorers… naming [“discoveries”] after the explorers themselves… even though oftentimes discovery was only done that with the help of Native folks” (blogger, quoting Julie Jones).
“Dorothy Berry added on “whose scientific names?” Let’s keep asking ourselves that as we start sifting through collections.”
Community Mission & Values
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Create and sustain a vibrant and inclusive intellectual community with an environment that fosters the acquisition of knowledge and skills about diversity, equity, cultural competence, and advocacy to improve public health locally, nationally, and globally
Create and advance knowledge and its translation into discoveries that lead to actions that improve health of people and populations
Additional Resources
Brilmyer, Gracen. “Archival assemblages: applying disability studies’ political/relational model to archival description.” Archival Science, April 2, 2018, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-018-9287-6.
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