Bridge Building, Intersectionality and Inclusion
Roundtable
Melissa Stoner, MLIS
Native American Studies Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
Lillian Castillo-Speed, MLIS from the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, 1983
Chicano Studies Librarian
University of California, Berkeley - Ethnic Studies Library
Sine Hwang Jensen, MA, MLS
Asian American and Comparative Ethnic Studies Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
The Ethnic Studies Library at UC Berkeley offers a unique perspective to the campus libraries, not only with a team of subject specific librarians but also with the ways they have managed and created metadata for many of their collections. The library contains archives that speak to the rich history of community organizations and social movements in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. The Ethnic Studies Library consists of four subject specialties, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies, and Native American Studies.
In 2016, the Ethnic Studies Library launched a staff-wide project to bring digital access to many of their archival materials, including historical materials of the communities represented not only on campus but in the San Francisco Bay Area. Working with the library’s cataloger, the librarians were able to create a workflow that not only complemented their vision of this digital path forward but also created metadata that is representative of diverse points of view.
This roundtable will facilitate a conversation about what “metadata justice” might mean for marginalized communities. Discussion will focus not only on metadata creation, but also include discussions about communities of color that are not accurately cataloged, the use of local controlled vocabulary as opposed to the Library of Congress Subject Headings, and questions regarding where to even start when digitizing and cataloging collections in order to place these communities front and center.