Enfilade

From the Hood Museum of Art:

Terms of Art: Design, Description, and Discovery in Cataloging
Online, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, 22–24 February 2023

Institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives have a mission to preserve, interpret, and disseminate cultural heritage. In addition to new acquisitions for their collections, these institutions must also update the tools with which researchers access and study these holdings, objects, and works of art. Increasingly, stakeholders like academics, educators, and the public treat a collection’s digital representation—its metadata records—as an entry point for discovery. Paradoxically, these web-based experiences meant to expose collections to broad audiences often assume users have specialized knowledge of the terms and processes GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institutions use to describe their own work, making them inaccessible to the majority of visitors. Additionally, variation and evolution of language often outpaces or does not align with public understanding. For example, someone interested in 17th-century Dutch art might not know that the phrase “Dutch Golden Age” has colonialist implications and has been removed from many museums’ internal databases. The search language isn’t wrong, it’s just outmoded.

The Hood Museum of Art and Dartmouth Research Computing have organized a virtual symposium to bring together museums, libraries, and archives to discuss issues of access and ethical vocabularies in cultural heritage. The goal is to develop the debate about how the language we use to describe collections impacts the communities that create and seek out art. The organizers hope to prompt dialogue on the issues curators and researchers face in trying to maintain equitable and anti-racist progress and research. Additionally, this symposium will emphasize the role of technologists who specialize in user-centered design as critical to promoting equity in information systems. In combining subject-matter specialists and user-centered design technologists, we aim to bridge the communication gap between institutions and the publics they serve, allowing each to educate the other about how they describe collections. The symposium is free and open to all. Click here to register.

More information about each session is available here»

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Times are Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5)

9.30  Welcome
• Ashley Offill, Associate Curator of Collections, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth
• Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth
• John Bell, Program Director, Data Experiences and Visualizations Studio, Dartmouth
• Meredith Steinfels, Assistant Director, Digital Platforms, Media & Archives, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth

10.00  Reparative Archival Description at Rauner Library
• Caro Langenbucher, Processing Specialist, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth
• Joshua Shaw, Library Web and Application Developer, Digital Library Technologies Group, Dartmouth
• Richel Cuyler, Cultural Heritage Technical Developer, Dartmouth
Moderator: Peter Carini, Archivist, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth

11.00  Continuing the Conversation
This informal 30-minute Zoom session is intended to provide a space for attendees to continue the dialogue from the previous session. Participants are encouraged to connect, brainstorm, and ideate. This session will not be recorded.

12.00  The Spectacle of Bodily Difference in Georgian England: A Case Study in Describing Visual and Textual Representations of Bodily Differences in Historic Printed Materials
• Alex Kither, Curator of Printed Heritage Collections, The British Library

12.30  Case Study: Leveraging the Authority of Labels to Align Design with Diverse Audiences
• Kiersten Thamm, Collections Curator, Museum of 21st-Century Design

1.30  Trouble with the Curve: Describing and Cataloguing Ornament
• Elizabeth Saari Browne, Remote Senior Research Cataloguer, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
• Adrienne Childs, Independent Scholar, Art Historian, Curator
• Rachel Jacobs, Remote Senior Research Cataloger, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
• Hazel Wilkinson, Associate Professor, University of Birmingham

2.30  Continuing the Conversation

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9.30  Open Office Hours with Elizabeth Rice Mattison: Cataloguing Complex Heritage and Data

10.00  Alt Text Power Hour
• Amelia Mylvaganam, Curatorial Research Aide, The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University
• Melanie Garcia Sympson, Curatorial Associate for Collections Information and Digital Interpretation, The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

11.00  Continuing the Conversation

12.00  Case Study: Tag Along with Adler
• Jessica BrodeFrank, Senior Manager of Digital Management Services, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Doctoral Candidate the University of London School of Advanced Studies

12.30  Case Study: Assessing the Application of a Locally-Developed Controlled Vocabulary
• Hannah M. Jones, 2022 LEADING Fellow, Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC
• Mark E. Phillips, Associate Dean for Digital Libraries, University of North Texas Libraries
• Hannah Tarver, Head, Digital Projects Unit, University of North Texas Libraries
• Ana Krahmer, Director, Texas Digital Newspaper Program, University of North Texas Libraries

1.30  Case Study: Casting Terms
• Milena Gallipoli, Head of Research, Museo de la Cárcova and Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina

2.00  Case Study: The Office of Art and Archives, US House of Representatives
• Michelle Strizever, Photography and Digital Content Specialist, U.S. House of Representatives, Office of Art and Archives
• Mackenzie Miessau, Registrar, U.S. House of Representatives, Office of Art and Archives

2.30  Open Office Hours with Brinker Ferguson: 3D Documentation, Archiving, and Dissemination of Cultural Heritage Objects

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9.00  Designing and Curating East Asia Art in the Digital Age
• Janet Fong, Research Assistant Professor (Curating), Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
• Harald Kraemer, Curator, University of Hong Kong, University Museum and Art Gallery
• Shuo Sue Hua, Assistant Curator (Postdoc Research Fellow), University of Hong Kong, University Museum and Art Gallery
• Ying Liu, Curator (Director of Digital Archive Department), Zhejiang Art Museum (ZJAM) and Associate Director, Chinese Artists Association Print Art Committee – Zhejiang Province, China
• Zhu Yi, Ph.D. Candidate, Lingnan University

10.00  Continuing the Conversation

10.30  Roundtable and Workshop: Curationist.org
• Sharon Mizota, DEI Metadata Consultant
• Amanda Acosta, Digital Archivist, MHz Foundation
• Christina Stone, Digital Archivist, MHz Foundation
• Ravon Ruffin, Educational Programs Manager, MHz Foundation

11.30  Continuing the Conversation

12.00  Open Office Hours: Media Preservation with John Bell

12.30  Open Office Hours: Student-Led Projects and Initiatives with Ashley Offill

1.30  Terms of Art: Reflection, Dialogue, and Facilitating Change