Inclusive Cataloguing: Revising Archival Descriptions
This guest blog in our Inclusive Cataloguing series is by Simon Wilson, Archives Consultant
Revising Archival Descriptions
Over the last few months I have been looking at some offensive words – thousands of them in fact. I haven’t been looking into the deepest corner of the internet – the truth is that I’ve been looking at published archive catalogues and finding aids.
I have been supporting the Revising Archival Description project for Archives Council Wales. This project is the latest in a series of initiatives across the archive sector to consider how the words and terms which appear within our finding aids do serve as a barrier to some users. I have heard anecdotally from colleagues in a range of archive services that the scale of the task – checking the entirety of their collections was too big to contemplate in addition to their existing workloads.
Methodology
The path we took was laid-down for us by colleagues at the University of Leeds. In their 2021 Archives Testbed project they worked with colleagues from the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute to consider the use of linguistic software to support research into ‘problematic language’. Their recommended solution was to combine AntConc freeware with the Brotherton list of over 1000 terms that are racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic and generally offensive.
Using an existing methodology allowed us to focus on securing as many participating archive services and to look at as many catalogues as we could. The reason for this was simply the belief that the more data we processed the stronger the results would be, and in this aspect we were assisted enormously by colleagues at the Archives Hub. The data needed to be in text so output from CALM or EAD files works well but using PDF catalogues isn’t an option.
Results
AntConc allows you to review the catalogue data against the terms list and returns the words it matches including the words that precede and follow the matching term – allowing you to see the term in its specific context. AntConc can handle a large quantity of data so you can process thousands of catalogues in one go with the results easily exported to MS Excel where it can be more easily viewed, sorted and counted.
The project has processed more than 29,000 archive catalogues from 12 participating archive services – representing more than 58 million words. 195,000 hits were then manually reviewed to identify ‘true’ hits – terms that somebody might find offensive. A particular challenge faced with some terms was that of nuance – in one context a term might be acceptable, but in another clearly unacceptable. Seeing each occurrence of the term in context was a crucial factor in the review process.
In total over 5000 instances of ‘true’ terms were identified from 71 distinct words, with the results returned to each archive service for them to review. The list of terms has been shown to partners and to delegates at the History and Archives in Practice 2024 conference, it would be fair to say that the list is shocking, featuring as it does many words you would not expect to see in a catalogue or finding aid.
Theatre Royal playbill advertising Calder’s ‘White Slave’ company performance, 31 Oct 1885 (ref D542/1/9), Glamorgan Archives
Consider the Playbill poster from 1885 (above) what terms should we use to give an accurate description and what might be the impact if we don’t use the language of the original item?
Report
The project report, which can be found on the Archives Wales website, includes a detailed account of the methodology and the results. The methodology works and I actively encourage colleagues to download AntConc and see what it finds – the results and the discussions this provokes will be time well spent. The report also highlights similar work being undertaken across the sector including the implementation of content warnings in online catalogues.
Working with multiple partners has focussed work and effort on possible next steps. The work and the results highlight the complexity of language where a term can simultaneously offend a user and serve as a key access point for another user. Working with a range of stakeholders and with colleagues across the heritage sector will allow us to demonstrate our concerns about the language and a desire to identify an appropriate approach to instigate change.
Simon Wilson
Archives Consultant