Reimagine Descriptive Workflows in the UK and Ireland: An OCLC RLP community-informed discussion

Libraries seek to create welcoming and respectful spaces for all users; this includes the library catalog, a crucial tool for discovery and access. In 2022, OCLC convened experts, practitioners, and community members, and created the report Reimagine Descriptive Workflows. This project highlighted the opportunity to improve descriptive practices, tools, infrastructure, and workflows in libraries and archives to improve and contextualize cultural institutions’ collection descriptions. While the report offers a valuable framework, it primarily centers on the historical and social contexts of Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the United States. For libraries in the UK and Ireland (UKI), the need to reimagine descriptive workflows is equally significant but with attention to specific cultural and historical nuances. During OCLC RLP workshops in London, Sheffield, and Glasgow in May 2024, catalogers and other stakeholders collaboratively explored their work in this area.  

With this in mind, the OCLC RLP team did what it does best – convene stakeholders to workshop this issue and illuminate insights from expert practitioners and to collectively identify productive next steps. Thanks to participants for their illuminating insights: 

Sally Bell (University of Glasgow)	Adrian Plau (Wellcome Collection)
Elly Cope (University of Leeds)	Christoph Schmidt-Supprian (Trinity College Dublin)
Pardaad Chamsaz (British Library)	Kathryn Sullivan (University of Manchester)
Laura Rooney Ferris (Trinity College Dublin)	Helen Williams (London School of Economics)
Ceilan Hunter-Green (University of Leeds)	Thurstan Young (British Library)
Katy Mair (Wellcome Collection)

Setting the scene 

In a series of meetings held virtually in late 2024, participants recognized that current descriptive practices often fail to adequately represent the diversity of UKI communities. There is a particular need for increased awareness and sensitivity towards the specific impact of British expansion on descriptive practices. Efforts to move forward can be geographically isolated.  As one discussion participant explained, “So much of these conversations [around changing descriptive practices] that we have are from a non-UK perspective… ” The broadly used Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Library of Congress Classification (LCC) carry inherent US-centric orientation.  UKI institutions can move beyond simply adopting North American models for reparative description and prioritize issues specific to their context. 

Discussions thus far have raised possible next steps that can be addressed through actions at individual institutions and areas where sector-wide investments would be useful.  

Actions for individual institutions: practical steps forward 

Identify and address capacity and resourcing for reimaginging description practices. Discussion participants, while eager to dig into learning followed by action, were concerned about additional expectations placed on sometimes overburdened staff. Whether creating projects to revisit legacy data or taking a fresh look at incoming collections, institutions must adequately resource this work to make progress. Although individual institutions need to carry out this work, and the rationale for resourcing must align with local priorities, participants see toolkits for advocating for resources as a shared need.  

Communicate with and engage communities in addressing change. Several participants talked about their desire to build mechanisms for receiving feedback from the public, especially community members who have been impacted by prior descriptive practices. Examples included implementing a feedback button in the discovery layer, supported by templated responses in addition to a well-articulated (and resourced) plan to take action on feedback. Other examples included the creation of public-facing webpages describing activities to support and engage with communities in the management and presentation of collections; participants saw such efforts as contributing to transparency. Special and cultural collections are often a locus for direct conversations with communities. These relationships could be positively leveraged to ensure that the words used to describe these community members are vetted and approved, and that community representatives can be included in ongoing dialog about descriptive terms. For effective outcomes, institutions should consult with people from their communities with different backgrounds and experiences; this work should be undertaken without placing undue burden on the individuals being consulted.  

Other examples of work that can be carried out locally (but which would naturally be enhanced by a broader community of practice) included: 

• Undertaking pilot projects to demonstrate the value of reimagining description work and building technical skills and confidence. One participant emphasized the importance of “bite-sized projects” to develop confidence and expertise. 

• Building on the work or experience of others could support the development of toolkits and learning materials to increase metadata staff confidence in doing work in this area.   

• Establishing an annual language sensitivity review of terminology and subject headings. This is an area that would lend itself to focusing on a small but important segment of library collections.  

• Library system migrations present an opportunity to examine how language has been used and how it may be updated.  

Actions for the sector: collective effort for positive impact 

Participants identified several sector-wide actions to support an emerging community of practice. 

Sharing information about existing UKI-specific efforts, pilots, and emerging best practices. The willingness to share experiences, challenges, and even setbacks is a crucial element for progress. Participants know that there is a lot of good work happening in the sector, but such information is not tracked or consolidated in a single location. It is difficult to find, sometimes available only through subscription to the right listserv or via referral in one-on-one conversations. Sharing information in a central resource hub would facilitate learning, collaboration, and advancing best practices. Even failed efforts are important to share, as there are always lessons to be learned. Participants supported the idea of identifying a “bank of mentors,” those who are experienced in reimagined descriptive workflows. They also noted that approaches in special collections and archives may differ from library cataloging, although the two sectors have much to learn from one another. Knowledge sharing builds a common understanding of user experience in relation to inclusive description and supports shared insights on community collaboration. 

Opportunities to collaborate on projects within community hubs. A shared community of practice would provide opportunities to collaborate among those doing this work, especially where institutions have complementary collecting areas or are serving similar communities.  

Considering the role of AI.  Many participants are interested in using AI to streamline processes, particularly for identifying and updating language in the catalog, while also being mindful of potential biases that can be introduced by AI. Because of the need for appropriate resourcing and knowledge sharing, this may be an area for sector-wide collaboration of AI applications and approaches.  

Time estimation tools. Development of such tools would help institutions budget the time and resources needed for reparative description efforts. Data to inform how long efforts take could be informed by pilot projects and time tracking.  

Next steps 

Over the next few months, the group will conclude discussions, and we will share additional learnings. Many themes emerging from our discussions strongly resonate with those of the Reimagine Descriptive Workflows project: investing in staff training to develop internal communities of practice; promoting and supporting community-led co-design and creative cultures of reciprocity; and establishing feedback mechanisms.  

Despite the scale of the task and gaps in shared knowledge, there are many reasons for inspiration. The discussions clearly demonstrated the passion and commitment of individuals in our group to address issues, advance initiatives underway, and effect change. As elsewhere, the journey to reimagining descriptive workflows in the UK and Irish context is a long one, requiring sustained effort, collaboration, and a commitment to centering marginalized voices. By activating both individual institutional efforts and collective action, the UKI library and archive sector can move towards creating more welcoming spaces for all users. 

Notes on use of AI: a preliminary draft of this blog post was prepared using AI tools that generated meeting transcripts and summarized meeting notes and related resources, including the Reimaging Descriptive Workflows report. (As a rule, we do not expose RLP community transcripts or meeting notes to commercial genAI tools but rely on internal sandbox environments to protect the privacy of community documents.) This process was useful in identifying themes to highlight. AI tools were also used to evaluate the tone and make some editorial improvements. These tools did not replace the human expertise needed to craft a final version but helped to make the process a little easier and prompted deeper reflection on our communication choices and practices. I’m grateful to the very human Mercy Procaccini for her assistance.