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Collaboration in Service of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Orbis Cascade Alliance

Addressing bias in archival description and cataloguing at a library consortium in the northwestern United States

Stewart Baker, Lauren Goss, Erin Grant, Gayle O’Hara,

Ryan Hildebrand, Crystal Rodgers

IGeLU 2021, August 25, 2021

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Land Acknowledgement

Seattle, Washington

Coast Salish (UW)

Stillaguamish (UW)

Duwamish (UW)

Suquamish (UW)

Monmouth, Oregon

Luckiamute Band of Kalapuya (WOU)

Pullman, Washington

Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) (WSU)

Palus (WSU)

Eugene, Oregon

Southern Kalapuya (UO)

Source: https://native-land.ca/resources/territory-acknowledgement/

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What to expect today:

Overview of the Orbis Cascade Alliance
Overview of the collaboration & project
Guidelines for EAD
Guidelines for MARC & Primo
Guidelines for Digital Collections
Wrap up and Q & A

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Orbis Cascade Alliance

The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a library consortium serving academic libraries in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The Alliance runs a shared library management system and discovery interface, works on collective purchasing, facilitates access to unique and local collections, and coordinates resource sharing for our members.

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Collaborative Workforce Model

W1

W2

W3

Central staff

Teams and Groups.

A few do on behalf of all. Balance contributions over time.

All members do W3 work as part of membership expectations

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Structure of Alliance Teams

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Groups within the Alliance collaborating on this equity & bias project:

Unique Materials in the SILS Standing Group - Unique & Local Content Team

Cataloging Standing Group - Technical Services Team

Archives West Standing Group - Unique & Local Content Team

Primo Customization Standing Group - Systems Team

Alliance Program Staff:

Maija Anderson, Assistant Director & Program Manager, Open Strategies and Digital Content (Unique & Local Content Team)

Lesley Lowery, Program Manager, Technical Services

Bryan Vogh, Program Manager, Systems

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Guidelines for Addressing Bias in Archival Description and Catalog Records

Provide information regarding current practices already being implemented by Alliance institutions.
Provide tiered recommendations for drafting general and specific statements regarding bias in description and harmful content in collections, including options for where to place these statements in the library catalog, archival finding aids, and other descriptive resources.
Provide links to examples of statements acknowledging bias and harmful language in catalog records and archival description from other institutions.
Facilitate ongoing discussions around problematic content, description, and cataloging.
Institutions should feel free to use and adapt these guidelines to suit local practice.

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Why Collaboration?

The Unique Materials in the SILS Standing Group (UMSILS) wanted to provide guidelines to member institutions on how to address equity & bias in our collections. We quickly realized we could not do this alone.
How would a statement on equity & bias display in Archives West? UMSILS needed to work with the Archives West Standing Group to address this.
Where would such a statement live in the MARC record? We needed the expertise of the Cataloging Standing Group.
We all had very limited understanding of Primo and display in the shared library system. In consulting and collaborating with the Primo Customization Standing Group, we found a solution to our display confusion.

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EAD and Archives West

In consultation with the Archives West Standing Group, Processing Information or <processinfo> tag determined to be the most appropriate field in EAD to encode statement information

Repeatable field defined in the EAD tag library as “information about accessioning, arranging, describing, preserving, storing, or otherwise preparing the described materials for research use.” (Encoded Archival Description Tag Library Version EAD3)
Labeled as the “Processing Note” and displayed within the Administrative Information section of finding aids on Archives West.

Guidelines applicable whether using an XML editor or ArchivesSpace to create finding aids

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XML Encoding

Tier 1: General Statement

<head>Equity and Bias in Archival Description</head>

</processinfo>

Tier 2: Collection-specific Statement

<head>Statement on Harmful Content</head>

This collection contains graphic depictions of violence in Series V: Photographs

</processinfo>

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ArchivesSpace

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Using a Header

<head>Equity and Bias in Archival Description</head>

</processinfo>

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Processing Note Display in Archives West

Processing Note Repeated

Processing Note Not Repeated

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MARC Records - Cataloging Standing Group Feedback

Why not use a globally applied note in MARC 590?

Repeated standardized note in many/all records could skew Primo patron searching
Ongoing maintenance work to add note to new records
590 not hyperlinked field in Primo + Primo field hyperlinking already maxed out in Alliance + Upcoming Primo PBO to VE migration =

Other possible options:

Primo banners, headers, or footers with link to DEI statement
Additional 856s in bib records with link to DEI statement
Importing DEI LibGuides into Primo as standalone resources
Item-level note in Alma with link to DEI statement

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Material-Specific Statements in Bibliographic Records

Materials-specific statements are appropriate in Institution Zone (IZ) catalog records�
Add as MARC 590, following Alliance’s Local Fields Best Practices document

https://www.orbiscascade.org/programs/scts/technical-services/documentation/local-fields/

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Material-Specific Statements in Bibliographic Records (2)

Recommended:

Statement should be recorded in single instance of MARC 590�
Statement should be prefaced by a general introductory phrase for ease of identification and potential manipulation in the future. Examples:

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Bib Records for Archival and Manuscript Collections

If a collection-specific statement is present in finding aid: reproduce it in the IZ record�
If no statement or no finding aid: an appropriate statement may be added to the IZ record, if one exists

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Statements in Bib Records for Other Library Resources

That is, everything else, including:

Books
Continuing resources
Graphics
Audio-visual materials
Sound recordings
Realia�

In short, appropriate statements *may* be added to an IZ record regardless of record type, or rarity and format of resource described.�

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Primo Customization Standing Group (PCSG)

PCSG creates and maintains Primo customizations.�
If Alliance member institutions or working groups approach PCSG with requests, PCSG does the systems and AngularJS work necessary to see if customizations can be created, then shares the code with Alliance members, on the Alliance website, and via GitHub. (note: we are not yet on Primo VE.)�
The Alliance has a consortial instance of Primo, with a network package in the network zone as well as local packages at most institutions. This sometimes complicates PCSG’s work but makes implementation across member institutions easier.

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PCSG and this project

For this project, PCSG discussed several ways to display bias statements:

Links in brief result records
Item policy and general electronic services (GES) to display warnings
Insertion of HTML into Alma location names
Use of 590 fields and other cataloguing techniques �

However, none of these was entirely satisfactory and some would require considerable additional work from other Alliance groups.

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Primo Custom Actions

An existing customization that was well suited to this project is PCSG’s “Primo Custom Actions” customization, which adds new actions to Primo’s “send to” list in the brief and full results for each item returned by a search.

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Custom Links in Eshelf Menu

If you want a single place to display the link, instead of in every single item, check out PCSG’s “Add Custom Links to the Eshelf Menu” customization.�
With this option, your link will appear in the menu where users sign in to Primo:

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Digital Collections

Link to Existing Institutional Statement�
Apply General Statement for Collection Landing Page(s):

“This site includes some historical materials that may imply negative representations or stereotypes of the peoples discussed in the documents. These documents have been included as part of the historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that project staff endorse or approve of the representations or stereotypes implied.” - Southern Oregon University - First Nations Collection

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Digital Collections (2)

Use Description Field for Standalone Digital Objects�
Develop A Specific Statement for Collections or Items

“Content Warning: This item has been flagged as containing racist or offensive content. Through our digital repository, Penrose Library offers access to a wide range of information, including historical materials that may contain offensive language or images, or negative stereotypes. Such materials should be viewed in the context of the time period in which they were produced. Penrose Library does not endorse the views expressed in such materials. If you have questions or need further assistance, please email arminda@whitman.edu." - Whitman College

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Concluding Thoughts

Cross program collaboration is one of the most rewarding, and challenging, aspects of Alliance work.

Guidelines:

https://tinyurl.com/umsilsguidelines

UMSILS webpage: https://www.orbiscascade.org/programs/ulc/umsils/

Feedback:

gayle.ohara@wsu.edu or manderson@orbiscascade.org