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"In Conversation With...." Discusses Reparative Description/Conscious Editing

By Anne Ackerson posted 07-20-2022 06:04 AM

  
Valencia Johnson, Princeton University

Dawne Howard Lucas, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

The latest edition of "In Conversation With..." features Valencia Johnson, Archivist for Student Life at Princeton University’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, and Dawne Howard Lucas, Technical Services Archivist for Collection Management at the Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discussing reparative description/conscious editing practices in their respective institutions.

The unfolding landscape of reparative description, also called conscious editing or ethical description, is a topic of great interest to many CoSA members, as well as to the larger archives, library, and museum fields. In fact, conscious editing was the topic of CoSA’s monthly webinar in May 2021 with Dawne and two of her colleagues. 

There’s been a quickening drumbeat around the topic of reparative description/conscious editing/ethical description, but the fact of the matter is these aren’t simply buzzwords that have happened to capture our professional attention in recent years. It’s clear that this critical work is not an activity that an institution just jumps into. It is intentional activity that requires commitment from archives leadership and institutional resources, and must be grounded in the institution’s values.

View the Recording

CoSA is now in its third year of hosting “In Conversation with…," a series of programs focusing on contemporary issues shaping the work of state archives and records management programs. As in previous years, the program examines issues in three broad topic areas: Diversity and Inclusion, The Workplace Here and Now, and The Future of Work and the Workplace.

You can find all of our “In Conversation With” recordings at the CoSA YouTube channel.

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