Decolonising and inclusive collections knowledge sharing (webinar 2)

Wednesday 3 July - Online event

10:30am – 12:00pm

Contact: [email protected]

At these two knowledge sharing webinars hosted by the ARA South East & London Region, fourteen speakers will share their experiences of decolonising collections and inclusivity in collections. The talks will be followed by a Q&A session with our speakers. Members and non-members are welcome to attend both webinars or just one.

PROGRAMME

10:30 Welcome and Introduction

10:40 – 11:40 Speaker presentations

11:40 – 12:00 Questions

12:00 Finish

THE SPEAKERS

Clare Hunt will speak on behalf of the National Museum of the Royal Navy about the legacy of colonialism in armed forces museums and the importance of working closely with communities.

Zoë Viney Burgess will be presenting on behalf of Wessex Film and Sound Archive on their recently completed Inclusive Cataloguing Resource Pack. Thanks to Resilience funding from the British Film Institute (BFI) Wessex Film and Sound Archive (WFSA) has spent the last 12 months developing an Inclusive Cataloguing Resource Pack for film and sound. The pack has been developed to address the shortfall in guidance available to film archives around cataloguing demographic characteristics. Audio visual sources present a unique challenge to cataloguers. Where text/document based archives might grapple with the appropriateness of language deployed in extant records, audiovisual content faces a double challenge: to tackle the issue of outdated or offensive language used in written/on-screen sources but also to manage the subjectivities, variable experience, knowledge and confidence that cataloguers bring to their work and how this is translates into metadata. Without words to describe visually discernible characteristics– they become invisible to catalogue users. WFSA’s approach aims to grow the confidence of cataloguers, and invite further research into the collections as more records become visible through their metadata.

Miidong P. Daloeng will present on the decolonisation project at the National Library of Wales. The Library developed a “Wales and the world” calendar that highlights various cultural, religious, awareness and diversity events globally, with significance to Wales and items available in the Library. The project has brought to light what has been available but unexplored and most importantly, it has cast light on areas for improvement in the Library’s collection development.

Simon Wilson has recently completed research for Archives and Records Council Wales into offensive language in archival finding aids. He will share the methodology adopted (using AntConc linguistic freeware) and the approach towards identifying terms already being used within the service’s finding aids.

Pamela Forde will present on behalf of The Royal College of Physicians. RCP collections cover the time period of Britain’s colonial exploitation, including items directly linked to that exploitation and which reflect the values and language of oppression. RCP created a decolonisation working group to re-examine their catalogues and other finding aids in the Summer of 2020. Pamela will speak about the decolonisation programme, how far they have come, what they have achieved, their approach, and what is still to come.

Lesley Shapland will talk about her provenance research in the context of the British Library's Race Equality Action Plan (REAP) and its stated aim to become "a more representative and diverse organisation that is welcoming and empowering for everyone".

Susannah Gillard will share the experience of the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership (BLQFP) in decolonising and increasing the accessibility and inclusivity of collection content held by the British Library. The BLQFP is a collaboration between the British Library, the Qatar National Library, and the Qatar Foundation, which began in 2012. It has consisted of a large-scale bilingual project to catalogue and digitise archival material relating to the Gulf and wider Middle East from the India Office Records and Private Papers, visual arts, audio and maps collections, and Arabic scientific manuscripts. Susannah will also discuss how the project’s cataloguing and translation teams, in particular, have attempted to deal with problematic and offensive language and attitudes present in India Office Records and Private Papers included in the project.

Host or Publisher ARA Wales