NASIG 2021

In August 2020, the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries created a plan to implement policies for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). As part of this initiative, the Libraries established several committees with varying purposes. The presenters for this proposal serve on the EDI Committee for Metadata and Digitization, whose goal is to evaluate and revise biases in metadata and digital representation at UTA Libraries. The members of this committee include archivists, librarians, and metadata specialists from the library’s special collections, digital creation, and access and discovery departments. By identifying the need for greater and more accurate representation of diverse groups, we seek not only to assure the ethical and equitable use of metadata, but also to enhance the accessibility and discoverability of those resources in our library catalog and digital collections.

This presentation details our committee’s process of assuring current and continuing equitable, diverse, and inclusive representation in technical services and digitization. The presentation will follow the phases of this project, from the committee’s initial objectives to its plan for continuing evaluation and revision of metadata and digitization practices. We begin this presentation by detailing how the committee first identified and established specific goals. We then examine the ways in which we undertook the widespread evaluation of the Libraries’ existing metadata and materials in our digital collections. We discuss how we created a plan for the revision of metadata and the prioritization in digitizing materials from our physical collections that highlight diverse voices and populations. We examine our creation of a system of measurements to track the outcomes of our tasks and the progress towards meeting our committee’s intended purpose. We then outline the methods we have adopted to assure the continued efforts towards greater and more accurate representation in our metadata and digital gallery. To conclude the presentation, we will give examples of lessons learned as well as steps moving forward within this committee, including updates to the library’s LibGuides and digital repository.

Many libraries have worked toward increasing awareness and implementing policies to increase visibility of diverse voices, populations, and cultures, and this presentation offers a case study on how UTA Libraries has handled their own initiatives. We hope to show our process for reviewing and correcting inequitable metadata as well as prioritizing digitization of materials in physical collections related to underrepresented groups. We believe that by sharing our committee’s efforts toward more equitable, diverse, and inclusive representation, we can encourage more information professionals to work towards implementing similar improvements at their institutions.