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Policies Toward Ethical and Inclusive Descriptive Practices in Library Special Collections

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Introduction

At UCLA Library Special Collections (LSC), we are guided by professional values and codes of ethics in support of ethical and inclusive approaches to descriptive practices. These do not act as prescriptive standards; rather, they provide a framework for intentionality and care in decision-making. The ACRL Code of Ethics for Special Collections Librarians, in particular, recognizes that “descriptive standards are products of the social world in which they were created. Therefore, standards are not neutral.…”[1] Consequently, we believe that ethical description requires that we be transparent about our decision-making; that we engage in critical and iterative reflection; and that we commit to continual learning and growth. We strive to respect everyone who creates, uses and is represented in our collections by adhering to principles of equity, diversity and inclusion[2] when we create our finding aids, catalog records and other descriptive metadata. By doing so, we hope to ensure that when we create and remediate description, the result will be inclusive, humanizing and anti-oppressive.

Overview

We aim to:

  • Be clear about what we know, how we know it, and what we don't know
  • Embrace baseline description as a tool to improve the discoverability of all our materials
  • Demonstrate an understanding that description is a continuous and necessarily iterative endeavor

To report potentially offensive description in Library Special Collections materials, please fill out this form.

Read more about our past and current approaches to description below.

Our Past Approaches to Description

There are many factors that impact how special collections material is described. First and foremost, description is the product of individuals who approach this task with their own inherent biases. While LSC is comprised of people from different intersectional identities, the Library is a predominantly white organization, and this is undeniably reflected in the work that has been done at LSC.

Historically, description was not framed as a political act, but rather as a tool for discovery by means of the deployment of ‘neutral’ terminology written from an unbiased perspective. This so-called neutrality, a political act in and of itself, amounts to tacit complicity. Our past approaches to description aligned with this framework, which resulted in some existing description of our materials containing language that may be offensive or cause harm. For example, LSC staff did not critically engage with potentially offensive practices, such as repurposing problematic bookseller description or employing outdated standardized subject headings and authorized terms.

Our decisions about what to include and how to structure the description we create are guided by national and international cataloging and description conventions that enable standardized searching across the entire University of California library system and beyond. Our reliance on these standards means, in some instances, we have employed certain terminology that is outdated and harmful. The resulting description is further influenced by the contextual, technical, and standards-based limitations of the various discovery platforms that we utilize to make our material accessible. We support efforts underway to update these terms at the national level.

Additionally, it takes a lot of time and labor to create archival and bibliographic description, and, unfortunately, Library Special Collections has limited collection management staff resources to do this work. Alongside these factors, descriptive practices in LSC have also been heavily influenced by the need to prioritize externally funded projects and those which we acquired with donor-imposed deadlines or based on other donor-related priorities while our backlog increased. This resulted in productivity expectations that prioritized throughput, which were driven by professional imperatives for efficient processing.[3] This emphasis meant that we focused on publishing more finding aids with minimal description, often re-purposed from donors, booksellers or the creators of the material whenever possible.

Current Approaches to Description

More recently, scholarship in the field of information studies has recognized the harm that an unexamined practice brings about. Specifically, the temporal framework of slow archives is about “focusing differently, listening carefully and acting ethically.”[4] A descriptive practice that does not actively seek to remediate holdings with racist or otherwise harmful content is a disservice to our communities. We acknowledge that we are not neutral[5] and neither is the description that we create. LSC is working to remediate the harm we have caused by critically examining our existing records and implementing new descriptive practices that aim to be inclusive and respectful.

We are committed to remediating harmful description by creating and implementing an anti-oppressive approach to discovery and access. To sustain this approach, we will center people in all of our metadata practices and adapt our strategies for doing so over time.

As LSC reviews, revises and creates new description for the materials we steward, we strive to implement ethical and inclusive descriptive practices in the following ways:

Be clear about what we know, how we know it, and what we don't know

  • Cite all contributors, dates, endowments, funding source and other information used to process materials to increase transparency and acknowledge our own positionalities in relation to the materials that we describe.
  • Include a standardized Processing Information Note in all finding aids and catalog records that provides a clear record of the interventions we undertook to make the materials discoverable and accessible.
  • Provide information about the reasons and circumstances, where possible, under which material was acquired by including Source of Acquisition and Provenance Notes in finding aids and catalog records.
  • Take time to research and consult with subject-area specialists and community members prior to describing material and document and credit their intellectual contributions.

Embrace baseline description as a tool to improve the discoverability of all our materials

  • Communicate our capacity to receive and care for the materials we steward to all stakeholders, both internal and external.
  • Surface the names of individuals documented in community collections by adding relevant subject headings and authority terms to ensure that description adequately represents the historical record.
  • Implement an initiative to elevate discovery and access to LSC materials, which facilitates baseline discovery, reappraisal, prioritization and access activities.
  • Engage in ongoing systematic metadata remediation to improve the quality and consistency of our finding aids and catalog records by updating language to align with current standards and best practices as they evolve.
  • Document instances of harmful language provided by donors, booksellers, library staff and creators within a Processing Information Note in the finding aid and catalog record, and queue the material for redescription.

Demonstrate an understanding that description is a continuous and necessarily iterative endeavor

  • Improve the overall quality and consistency of finding aids and catalog records via a peer review process that incorporates multiple perspectives.
  • Create a mechanism for users to provide feedback about harmful or inaccurate description so that the material can be queued for redescription.
  • Develop a process for identifying collections from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities to prioritize and queue these for additional description.
  • Implement a practice of using community-based thesauri for subject headings, and explain the retention of any harmful subject headings within a Notes field.
  • Develop policies and guidelines that are rooted in and directly support the commitments outlined in the Statement of Inclusion and Equity in Special Collections, Archives and Distinctive Collections in the University of California Libraries.[6]
  • Collaborate with community members and stakeholders on an ongoing basis, and participate in community-driven efforts to describe the materials we steward ethically and respectfully.

Resources

Bias, Standpoint, and Positionality

Legacy Harmful Description Practices

Inclusive and Ethical Description Practices

Ethical Description Practices and Levels of Description

Report Potentially Offensive Content and Description in Library Special Collections

We invite you to submit feedback about materials that would benefit from additional context, how our collections are described and how they could be described more accurately.
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