Beyond Exploitation: Metadata Justice and Prison Labor

Abstract

Large-scale digitization projects require enormous amounts of resources and labor, both of which are frequently in short supply in libraries and archives. How, then, has Oklahoma’s Yearbook Project been able to scan and process high school yearbooks at no cost for schools, libraries, museums, and historical societies? As a service of Oklahoma Correctional Industries, a state-level prison industry program, the Yearbook Project relied on the penal labor exemption of the Thirteenth Amendment which allows for involuntary servitude to occur behind prison bars. Although the Yearbook Project is currently on hiatus due to an ongoing investigation, metadata specialists, cataloguers, and the wider memory work community must still grapple with the legacy of this and other exploitative and unethical programs that have contributed to the resources and services we offer patrons. This presentation sheds light on the issue of exploitative prison labor on behalf of libraries and archives, and offers a solution grounded in metadata justice: labeling items, collections, and databases that benefit from exploitative labor