Words have meaning. As catalogers and people who work with metadata, we use words to categorize and organize and describe our collections. We want people to find things. We want researchers to discover that item that will help answer questions, point in the right direction, or show a new path. The words we apply matter. The words we apply also have historical, social, and political significance. The words we use reflect how we understand the world in our time. When we use words to categorize and organize and describe people, groups, and countries, we are reflecting who we are and how we view the world. Our work requires that we strive to recognize and counter those biases to make our collections as useful as possible to the widest audience possible.
Join us for a discussion about the words we use in our metadata work. We’ll review authorized sources, subscription sources, and our own records to reflect on how we apply words to categorize and organize and describe people, groups, and countries. We’ll identify the processes that exist to make changes to those words and examine whether we are serving the world we think we are serving.
DATE: Wednesday, April 25
TIME: 9-10 am
PLACE: Wells Library Room E174
MODERATORS: Julie Hardesty & Jennifer Liss
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