All Our Stories: Inclusive Description

Thursday 26 January 2023, 09:30 am on Zoom.

There is power in description and language must be understood as a tool through which heritage professionals can create and curate socially conscious catalogues, collections, displays, and learning resources. Carissa Chew will share the rationale behind the Cultural Heritage Terminology Network (CHTNUK) and her Inclusive Terminology Glossary, two projects that she created as the former the Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion Intern at the National Library of Scotland (2020-2021). Whilst the Cultural Heritage Terminology Network is a space that promotes practice sharing and cross-institutional collaboration on inclusive description issues, the Inclusive Terminology Glossary is a collaborative project that provides specific language guidance on the historic and contemporary usage of terms relating to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, and disability.

About Carissa:

Carissa Chew is a History PhD Student and Teaching Assistant at the University of Hawai‛i at Mānoa who also works freelance as an Inclusive Metadata Consultant. In 2019, she undertook a nine-month Equalities, Diversity, and Inclusion Internship at the National Library of Scotland, before completing two inclusive cataloguing projects with the Imperial War Museums and Glasgow School of Art in the summer of 2022.

Registration: To register please click here.

Part of SCA’s All Our Stories: Inclusive Practice in the Archives webinar series. You can find recordings of previous sessions here.

Archives and records enrich our lives, connect us to the past and give us a sense of identity. People enjoy the stories they reveal, and archives matter because they tell the story of all of us. Yet how some of our stories are recorded, if they are even recorded, can discourage communities from engaging and exploring heritage. SCA are committed to ensuring that archives are open to all, and support archive services in their work to remove barriers to participation, reach new audiences and to engage users.

SCA are delighted to launch our latest series of webinars, focussing on inclusive practice in the archives. The series will primarily focus on collection development and cataloguing, with participants gaining insight into presenting materials with respect, sensitivity, and innovatively, to not only enrich understanding of collections, but to also engage with users form across our communities. The webinars will be a mix of practical guidance and case studies, and we are delighted to be joined by speakers working across the archive collections and the wider heritage sector.