Striving for Inclusive Description: Strategies for Creating More Representative and Equitable Metadata in Digital Collections

There are challenges to creating and managing descriptive metadata for digitized and born-digital materials, particularly content that may include language and subjects that are outdated, sensitive, or non-representative. This module discusses approaches in describing such content and offers strategies for the thoughtful remediation of historical and cultural heritage metadata. It examines examples of digital object metadata from various institutions and discusses the ways in which information professionals can strive to create more representative, equitable, and inclusive description.

 Learning Outcomes

  • Outline the challenges that cultural heritage materials offer to inclusive and equitable descriptive metadata

  • Gain strategies for creating and remediating descriptive metadata for objects with outdated language or sensitive subject matter

  • Discuss real-world examples of descriptions of historical materials and identify approaches to making metadata more representative and inclusive

Your Instructor

Stephanie Luke

Assistant Professor-Metadata Librarian, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Stephanie Luke has seven years’ experience working in libraries. She is Assistant Professor-Metadata Librarian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She formerly held the position of Metadata Librarian for Special Collections at the University of Texas at Arlington where she was Chair of the DEI Committee for Metadata and Digital Projects. Her research focuses on reparative description and inclusive metadata in libraries and archives.