Reparative Description in Action Workshop

Date: 13 March 2023
Time: 2:00 p.m. ET
Location: Zoom
Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage at Rare Book School

Join the Workshop Working Group of Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage for a virtual workshop addressing the importance of repairing archival descriptions through the use of ethical approaches. The practice of reparative description seeks to address harmful practices that not only continue to erase and marginalize the histories of communities of color, but also the existing structures that force users to search through archives with negative search terms. Archivist Stephen R. Curley and librarian Jennifer Garcon, Ph.D., discuss their experiences with metadata remediation. The workshop seeks to educate archivists, librarians, fellows, community members, and students on the importance of reparative description and to give you action plans on how to create and implement reparative workflows and protocols in your work.

This event was held on Zoom on 13 March 2023. See below for a link to the YouTube recording.

Stephen R. Curley, enrolled citizen of the Diné/Navajo Nation, began his tenure as the Director of Digital Archives at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in 2019. Curley is a professional archivist who is committed to being of service to Tribal community archives and museums. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona, and an M.L.I.S. from the University of Arizona with a focus on archival practices and methodologies. Curley has worked with Tribal governments, groups, and communities regarding the development of cultural heritage institution services, programming, and information management capacities. He has also served as the Chair of the Society of American Archivists’ Native American Archives Section (SAA-NAAS) from 2018 to 2019, whereby he worked towards facilitating meaningful relationships between Tribal and non-Tribal institutions who have a vested interest in the ethical stewardship and curation of Native American archival collections. He continues this work and serves the entire SAA body as part of Council for his 2020–23 term.

Jennifer Garcon, Ph.D., is the Librarian for Modern and Contemporary Special Collections at Princeton University, where she is responsible for the collection, curation, and care of 20th- and 21st-century rare books, manuscripts, and born-digital collections. She is also a steering member of Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia, an activist-archivist group working with BIPOC communities and organizations in the mid-Atlantic to save, document, and preserve their historical archives and records. Garcon is a Cold War historian, specializing in grassroots social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Miami. She is a faculty instructor for RBS’s summer course G-85: Why Black Bibliography Matters.

Click here to learn more about the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage at Rare Book School.