At the Schlesinger Library, the Manuscripts Department is developing language and best practices for creating or updating description and will be documenting how and where to incorporate identity description in finding aids and catalog records. Below are some examples of processing notes.
When keeping outdated or harmful terminology in the finding aid
Finding aids can include outdated or harmful terms that in some cases should not be remediated. In those instances, archivists should add a paragraph to the standard processing note to explain why these terms were left in place. The following examples are from Schlesinger collections:
The Papers of Dorothy Height: This finding aid contains the outdated term “Negro” in the names of organizations, book titles, reports, and audiovisual material. Schlesinger archivists may choose to retain outdated, offensive or harmful language in description under the following circumstances: 1) such language is an original term used in the material being described; 2) reflects historical and/or contextual value; 3) aligns with the preferences of the creator or donor and; 4) facilitates discovery and access.
When keeping outdated or harmful terminology in image catalog records
Below is an example of description in an image catalog record where outdated and potentially harmful terminology was retained.
The photographer Diana Mara Henry did a series of photographs at a school in Brooklyn in 1972. Her captions include the name of the school at the time, which was “Brooklyn Public School for the Retarded” or “School for the Retarded in Brooklyn, NY." The present-day name of the school is Brooklyn Occupational Training Center. The archivist used the current name of the institution in the record's title but added Diana Mara Henry's original caption in the notes field. She decided to retain the term because it was originally applied by the creator, was part of an institution's name, and helps show the meaningful shift of accepted terminology over time.
She also added this statement in the image catalog record:
This record contains the outdated term “Retarded” which was part of the original name of the school. The name was retained to reflect the photographer’s caption on the photograph and to preserve historical context. The current name of the school was added by the cataloger.
Reparative work on legacy finding aids
When description of legacy finding aids have been revised, the archivist will include a processing note to detail the work that was done. If the finding aid was significantly edited, we recommend keeping a copy of the original finding aid (as a PDF) to track the changes. However, when a description of the edits can be easily captured in a processing note (e.g. outdated terminology was replaced with a new term), the original finding aid does not need to be retained.
Example of a processing note for the Pauli Murray finding aid:
In November 2022 Laura Peimer revised this finding aid by adding description addressing Pauli Murray's gender and sexuality. This additional explanatory text can be found within the first paragraph of the Biography, in the Scope and Content note for Series I, and in the Scope and Content note for folder #71. She also added the subject heading "LGBTQ+ People." A previous version of this finding aid has been maintained for transparency around the descriptive process. Please contact the Schlesinger Library for details.
For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library's Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.