Descriptive Metadata in User Interfaces / Erin Baucom

This study path exposes students to how descriptive metadata in digital repositories is used to reinforce or disrupt stereotypes about marginalized cultures and communities.

By Erin Baucom, Digital Archivist and Assistant Professor, University of Montana

Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to explain how descriptive metadata reinforces or disrupts stereotypes applied to marginalized cultures.
• Students will better be able to identify and apply the appropriate controlled vocabulary for the culture that produces information artifacts.
• Students will be able to perceive that collaboration is essential when describing another culture.

Activity

This activity will ask students to examine two different resources currently used to create descriptive metadata in museums, archives, and library contexts. First a popular controlled vocabulary, the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) which often include language in the headings themselves, their definitions, and related terms that reinforce existing patriarchal, colonial social norms. Second, The First Nations Controlled Vocabulary (FNCV), built by a colonized community using their own language to fight back against the ideas imposed upon them by the dominant society. The new perspectives on language generated from the examination of the LCSH and FNCV will then guide students when dissecting how digital repositories apply descriptive metadata to items. Does the descriptive metadata used reinforce or disrupt stereotypes of other cultures?

Hands-on activity

Before performing this activity look at the following two web resources. Pay particular attention to where the subject heading is different for the same description. Why is the subject heading different? What does it mean when the the subject heading is the same but the descriptions do not match? Are there obviously outdated or obviously prejudicial subject headings or descriptions for subject headings? 

• Library of Congress Subject Headings ^[1]
• Use this resource to search for terms related to indigenous peoples. Perhaps start simply by searching “indigenous” and then move through related terms.

Smaller scale:

The purpose of this activity is to assess the descriptive metadata in the Digital Public Library of America exhibit History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives.

Describe the descriptive metadata used by cataloguers. Does it reinforce existing stereotypes (positive or negative)? Does it respect other cultures? How? How does it make you feel as a user? Remember part of user experience is how you feel when interacting with the website. Do you walk away feeling uncomfortable? Why or why not? Thinking about the Mukurtu Case Study ^[5], is there a way the user experience could be improved simply by tweaking descriptive metadata?

Larger scale:

The purpose of this activity is to assess the descriptive metadata in the Digital Public Library of America exhibit History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives ^[3] and compare it to a website that was developed for and inconcert with an indigenous community.

Describe the descriptive metadata used by cataloguers. Does it reinforce existing stereotypes (positive or negative)? Does it respect other cultures? How? How does it make you feel as a user? Remember part of user experience is how you feel when interacting with the website. Do you walk away feeling uncomfortable? Why or why not?

Examine the Mukurtu archive ^[4] website as an example of how language positively supports indigenous cultures. How does Mukurtu allow the activities of its users to be described? Does this change your opinion of the first site you looked at? Why or why not?

Resources

Controlled Vocabularies

Library of Congress Subject Headings ^[2]

First Nations Controlled Vocabulary ^[2]

Readings

Communities of practice

Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums. ^[9] 

Exemplary projects