Join the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) for ‘Creating Inclusive Digital Collections’, an online training event on Tuesday 26 Nov at 15:00 GMT!
This event is aimed at digital archivists, cultural heritage professionals, community archivists, curators, librarians, and all those interested in learning more about enriching archives through community engagement methodologies, participatory practices, and inclusive strategies.
Attendees will learn about:
• The need for a more inclusive and respectful approach to describing digital cultural heritage collections
• Practical resources and toolkits available to help detect harmful language, address bias, and implement inclusive interpretive strategies when describing cultural heritage content
• Queer-affirmative interpretive strategies that can be applied to describing cultural heritage collections
• Methodologies for embedding working with communities into cultural heritage practices when creating metadata and curating collections
The event will feature a brief introduction, presentations by the speakers, Margaret Middleton and Sofie Taes, followed by a questions and answer session moderated by the event Chair, Beulah Ezeugo.
About the Speakers
Beulah Ezeugo (she/her) is an artist and curator who works with others against the rapid tightening and regularisation of national borders. Her practice engages with postcolonial geographies, archival practices, and collective memory, and expands outwards through exhibition-making, programming, and publication. As an independent curator, she is interested in supporting collaborative and research-led artists’ practices. Beulah is currently a research associate at the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry, and one-half of the collective Éireann & I Archive, a migrant memory project. Beulah is also a member of the Digital Repository of Ireland’s Expert Advisory Board.
Margaret Middleton (they/them) is an American independent exhibit designer and museum consultant currently based in Manchester, England. With a degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design and nearly 20 years of experience in the museum field, they work at the intersection of design and social justice. Margaret developed the popular Family Inclusive Language Chart and consults with museums on implementing inclusive practice with special focus on children, gender minorities, and queer people.
Sofie Taes (she/her) has been working for over a decade at the Department of Cultural Studies (CS Digital) of KU Leuven, mostly in international projects in the digital humanities and digital cultural heritage sectors. She is currently the innovation (IOF) manager for DigitGLAM, a research valorisation consortium at the intersection of humanities and innovative technologies. Since January 2022, Sofie has acted as vice-chair of the Europeana Network Association. In this role, she is also a member of the sub-group of the expert group of the European Commission dedicated to the Data Space for Cultural Heritage (CEDCHE). She worked on the Digital Europe funded DE-BIAS project, which aimed to foster a more inclusive approach to describing cultural collections.
Register on the event page: https://dri.ie/events/creating-inclusive-digital-collections/