Slowing down for metadata justice: On learning to trust our bodies and ourselves

Abstract

Indebted to the work of Black women writers Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, and Tricia Hersey, and the continued efforts of library workers from Sandy Berman to Emily Drabinski, this session will explore why slowing down is not only a viable approach to metadata justice work, but the only sustainable approach allowing us the restful space necessary to: see, understand, and subvert the structural discrimination built into our information systems; imagine and create new systems; truly trust ourselves.

We’ll cover necessary steps towards creating an individual and/or group framework for metadata justice (based on a thoroughly constructed example) including the essential place of a non-punitive grievance process. We’ll also investigate how the persistent fear of scrutiny can contribute to our inability to slow down, if we don’t take the essential first steps of grounding ourselves in our principles. Essentially: the question should not be “will this look right to outsiders” and instead should be “do I trust that I have taken the time and the care to truly consider the impacts of this work?” Only when we truly slow down can we learn to trust ourselves in this work.