Reparative Description in Archives and Special Collections

Dean of the Libraries, Lisa German, said, "Antiracism is a journey, as Ibram X. Kendi tells us in How to Be an Antiracist, and we commit to identifying and addressing the ways white supremacy manifests itself throughout all aspects of librarianship. We must be accountable for this work. Our U Office for Equity and Diversity says: We all share responsibility for equity and diversity — it’s everybody’s everyday work. We are committed to making this a priority for the University of Minnesota Libraries."

Read more from Anti-Racism is a priority for the U of M Libraries

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Metadata and Description: Statement of Values and Principles
Statement providing a framework for University of Minnesota Libraries staff conducting this work

Archives and Special Collections collection guides language editing guidelines
Guidance on making and documenting changes to descriptive language in archival finding aids

Statement on historical language in archival description
This statement is linked from all pages in ArchivesSpace and is also the basis for harmful language notes that may be added to individual collection guides or archival objects within collection guides.

Topic/issue-specific guidelines

Archives for Black Lives

Disability Language Style Guide

Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources

Protocols for Native American Archival Materials

General guidelines

Guide to Conscious Editing (UNC Chapel Hill)

Creating Metadata for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Reimagine Descriptive Workflows (OCLC)

Drafting the Inclusive Metadata Statement (University of Oklahoma) Statement 

Resources about Bias and Metadata (Sharon Mizota) 
(Includes a list of alternative vocabularies)

Documentation from other repositories

Critical Cataloging work (Chicago History Museum)

Reparative Archival Description Working Group (Yale University)

List of Statements on Bias in Library and Archives Description (Cataloging Lab)

ASC Reparative Description Pilot Project

YMCA Archives Pilot Project

Reexamining Descriptive Language at the University of Minnesota Archives and Special Collections (Descriptive Notes blog post)

Digitizing and Enhancing Description Across Collections to Make African American Materials More Discoverable on Umbra Search African American History (Dorothy Berry)