Paper short abstract:

A case study approach highlights the ways in which indigenous communities and non-indigenous archives collaborate to provide culturally informed collections descriptions for cultural heritage media collections.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will examine the ways in which indigenous communities and non-indigenous archival repositories in the US are collaborating to produce culturally informed and context-rich descriptions of archival collections for both community and public access. The Ancestral Voices initiative at the US national library embeds community generated descriptions, translations from the native language, and subject terminology in catalog records that significantly expand and enrich sparse catalog records with indigenous knowledge. The initiative is the most prominent of an expansive program to respectfully and ethically engage community voices in the process of reparative cataloging and archival practices that displace racialized and pejorative terminology in creating access to indigenous cultural heritage.