Cataloging and Metadata Commons^™

Ethical And Anti-Oppressive Metadata: A Collaboration Between Catalogers And Archivists At George Mason University Libraries, Liz Beckman, Lynn Eaton, Yoko Ferguson, David Heilbrun, Rachel Lavender, Tricia Mackenzie, Dorothee Schubel

Collaborative Librarianship

Systems of library and archival resource description have historically reinforced the societal power structures of white supremacy, patriarchy, and cis-heteronormativity. Following the framework of critical librarianship and acknowledging our positionality as predominately white departments, George Mason University Libraries’ Metadata Services (MS) and Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) have been engaging in a variety of projects of reparative resource description. To discuss points of collaboration between the two departments, the Task Force for Ethical and Anti-Oppressive Metadata (TEAM) was formed, consisting of staff and faculty members from both groups who work with resource description. Although the departments have a history of …