Research Guides: Resources for Creating Inclusive and Conscious Archival Description: General Resources

Welcome

This guide provides information and learning resources for writing inclusive and conscious archival description. Archival description, usually in the form of a finding aid, is written by archivists to describe the arrangement and contents of a given archival collection. The following resources are intended to educate and create a foundation for accurate, inclusive, and conscious description that is free from harmful language.

Introductory Readings, General Guidance, and Self-Reflection

Invisible Defaults and Perceived Limitations: Processing the Juan Gelman Files.
Arroyo-Ramirez, Elvia. “Invisible Defaults and Perceived Limitations: Processing the Juan Gelman Files.” Medium, October 30, 2016. Presented at the Fall 2016 meeting of the Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group, New York, NY, October 28, 2016.
Arrangement and Description
Berdini, Annalise, Rich Bernier, Valencia Johnson, Maggie McNeely, and Lydia Tang. “Arrangement and Description.” Archiving Student Activism Toolkit. Project STAND, November 2019.
Reparative Processing: A Case Study in Auditing Legacy Archival Description for Racism
Bolding, Kelly. “Reparative Processing: A Case Study in Auditing Legacy Archival Description for Racism.” Presented at the Midwest Archives Conference, Chicago, IL, March 24, 2018.
From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives
Caswell, Michelle, and Marika Cifor. "From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives." Archivaria 81 (2016): 23-43.
Identifying & Dismantling White Supremacy in Archives: An Incomplete List of White Privileges in Archives and Action Items for Dismantling Them
Caswell, Michelle, and Gracen Brilmyer. “Identifying & Dismantling White Supremacy in Archives: An Incomplete List of White Privileges in Archives and Action Items for Dismantling Them” poster. Figure 1 in “Teaching to Dismantle White Supremacy in Archives," The Library Quarterly 87, no. 3 (July 2017): 222-235.
Critical Archival Studies: An Introduction
Caswell, Michelle, Ricardo Punzalan, and T-Kay Sangwand, “Critical Archival Studies: An Introduction,” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 1, no. 2 (2017).
Conscious Style Guide.
Evidence, Memory, Identity, and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms
Cook, Terry. “Evidence, Memory, Identity, and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms.” Archival Science 13 (2013): 95-120.
Creating a Community-based Web Archive
de jesus, nina. “Creating a Community-based Web Archive.” Paper presented at the Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies Colloquium, Toronto, ON, October 18, 2014.
Conscious Editing of Archival Description at UNC-Chapel Hill
Dean, Jackie. “Conscious Editing of Archival Description at UNC-Chapel Hill.” Journal of the Society of North Carolina Archivists 19 (2019): 41-55.
Design for Diversity Learning Toolkit
Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction
Drabinski, Emily. “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction.” The Library Quarterly 83, no. 2 (April 2013): 94-111.
RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description
Drake, Jarrett M. “RadTech Meets RadArch: Towards A New Principle for Archives and Archival Description.” Medium, April 6, 2016. Presented at the Radcliffe Workshop on Technology & Archival Processing, Cambridge, MA, April 5, 2016.
Introducing Critical Race Theory to Archival Discourse: Getting the Conversation Started
Dunbar, Anthony W. “Introducing Critical Race Theory to Archival Discourse: Getting the Conversation Started.” Archival Science 6, no. 1 (2006): 109-29.
Cultural Competency: A Framework for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Archival Profession in the United States
Engseth, Ellen. 2018. “Cultural Competency: A Framework for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Archival Profession in the United States.” The American Archivist 81, no. 2 (Fall/Winter) 460-482.
Confronting Our Failure of Care Around the Legacies of Marginalized People in the Archives
Jules, Bergis. “Confronting Our Failure of Care Around the Legacies of Marginalized People in the Archives.” Medium, November 11, 2016. Presented at the annual meeting of National Digital Stewardship Alliance, Milwaukee, WI, November 9, 2016.
Radical Copyeditor
Kapitan, Alex. Radical Copyeditor (blog).
Colophons and Annotations: New Directions for the Finding Aid
Light, Michelle, and Tom Hyry. “Colophons and Annotations: New Directions for the Finding Aid.” The American Archivist 65, no. 2 (2002): 216-230.
Project Implicit Social Attitudes Tests
Cultural Diversity Competency
Smith, Helen Wong. “Cultural Diversity Competency” (webcast). Society of American Archivists online learning portal.
Introduction to Conscious Editing Series
Sunshine State Digital Network. “Introduction to Conscious Editing Series (3 parts).”
Redescription as Restorative Justice
Sutherland, Tonia. “Redescription as Restorative Justice.” Presented as part of the Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) as Data Online Speaker Series, November 19, 2020.
Cultural Humility as a Framework for Anti-Oppressive Archival Description
Tai, Jessica. “Cultural Humility as a Framework for Anti-Oppressive Archival Description.” Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 3, no. 1 (2020).
Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description of Marginalized Histories
Tang, Annie, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, and Rachel E. Winston. "Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description of Marginalized Histories." Presented at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, Washington, DC, August 16, 2018.
We Need These Bodies, but Not Their Knowledge: Black Women in the Archival Science Professions and their Connection to the Archives of Enslaved Black Women in the French Antilles
Warren, Kellee E. "We Need These Bodies, but Not Their Knowledge: Black Women in the Archival Science Professions and their Connection to the Archives of Enslaved Black Women in the French Antilles.” Library Trends 64, no. 4 (Spring 2016): 776-794. doi:10.1353/lib.2016.0012.
2020 Capacity Building
Wickner, Amy. “2020 capacity building.”
Mobilizing Records: Re-framing Archival Description to Support Human Rights
Wood, Stacy, Kathy Carbone, Marika Cifor, Anne Gilliland, and Ricardo Punzalan. “Mobilizing Records: Re-framing Archival Description to Support Human Rights". Archival Science 14 (2014): 397-419.