Abakanowicz Research Center

Background

The Chicago History Museum (CHM) serves the public through exhibitions, programming, and research collections. Founded in 1856 as the Chicago Historical Society, CHM's current mission is to "share Chicago stories." A large part of this sharing occurs through the Abakanowicz Research Center (ARC). In 2023, we had 4,562 researchers (40% in person, 60% remote). The ARC serves published materials, prints and photographs, archives and manuscripts, and architectural drawings and manuscripts. There are more than 1 million publications; more than 6.5 million images and drawings; and over 23,000 linear feet of manuscript materials available to the public.  

We hope that our audience and our stories are as diverse as the city of Chicago, although we know that representation both within our materials and their metadata should be more welcoming (metadata is the language used to describe collections). It is vital that we address and change sexist, racist, colonialist, and other harmful language that exists in our institutional metadata. As the stewards for the research materials, we take responsibility for the harmful language in our descriptions and apologize for the pain we have caused.  

In the past few years, we have neglected this language maintenance in part due to smaller staff size and the desire to make materials available more quickly, but we should have been stronger advocates to fully highlight and describe diverse voices. Past ARC staff have made their own efforts at various times throughout the institution's 150+ year history, and we honor their work, both in diverse collecting and outreach, but also in keeping our catalog mostly up to date with Library of Congress changes. However, many of these past efforts were tied to specific individuals, and their projects usually didn't continue after they left the institution. This project hopes to address both our current needs and strategies as well as sustainable plans for changes in the future.  

Critical cataloging and librarianship create the lens through which we question our own biases--personal, institutional, and systemic. We are examining our current and legacy language, researching how communities define themselves, and clearly indicating when historic language is used. We have no wish to change the historical record, or erase institutional complicity, but we do want to make sure we are being deliberate in how we discuss history right now. We believe this is vital for representation and for social justice. 

Objectives

There are five main objectives in this ongoing project: identify harmful language in our metadata; change the language where appropriate and highlight it otherwise; identify and amplify diverse voices; connect and consult with various communities represented in the Research Center's collections; and maintain a sustainable critical language policy for the institution. 

Winter 2022-Spring 2023 updates

• Continuing to introduce more local headings, including language changes pertaining people who are incarcerated.
• In cooperation with CHM's Collections staff, Abakanowicz Research Center staff worked on updating and creating catalog records relating Indigenous people and other demographic groups in our Prints and Photographs topic files. Cataloging these changes is part of a larger effort by the museum to identify materials relating to Indigenous peoples across collections, with funding provided by the Lilly Endowment. 
• Continued efforts to identify women in CHM collections by their pre-marriage names, completing work on the collection of carte-de-visite photographs. 
• A cross-departmental Critical Cataloging Working Group was resurrected after a brief hiatus due to staffing changes. To ensure the long term sustainability of this work the group will continue to meet quarterly with the following broad goals in mind: Build and keep up momentum around this work; Create space for inter-departmental dialogue about inclusive language and reparative description; Ensure we have standardized language across departments; Share resources and workshop ideas. 

Fall 2022 updates

• Published a Women's studies subject guide
• Introduced more local headings, including language changes pertaining to people of South Asian descent.

Summer 2022 updates

• Continued efforts to identify women in CHM collections by their pre-marriage names. Summer practicum student Lily Mayfield wrote about her experience uncovering women's full names in this blog post: https://www.chicagohistory.org/naming-women-to-recover-histories/

Winter 2021-Spring 2022 updates

• Introduced local headings that highlight Indigenous endonyms. For the full list and more information, see here: CHM Local Headings - Indigenous Endonyms. Please note: This working document is neither exhaustive nor definitive, and it will be continually expanded and revised as needed. We welcome any feedback, including questions, comments, and/or suggestions for revision. (These headings have also been added to our "Local CHM Headings_Public" list, which can be found in the "Local Headings" box on the bottom left of this page).
• Concluded a 5-month grant project funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, which involved enhancing and promoting discoverability of CHM’s miscellaneous pamphlet collections relating to Indigenous peoples. Through research and consultation with the appropriate scholars, our catalogers added local headings, local notes, and any necessary disclaimers to 80 new MARC records, with the intention of providing more context, increasing discoverability, and minimizing inaccurate and harmful language within the catalog. A Google Arts and Culture site documenting the process was published in early May 2022. This project also served as a model for future cataloging of other subject collections of miscellaneous pamphlets. 

Summer and Fall 2021 updates

• Published two new subject guides: Indigenous Studies and South Asian American Studies.
• Began investigating language in our catalog relating to poverty and class.
• Began analyzing information resources about women in CHM collections to correctly identify them by their pre-marriage name.
• Introduced "CHM ARCHIE - Help us improve this content" form, which is now linked at the bottom of ARCHIE's homepage. We encourage anyone to use this form to submit typos, factual errors, misrepresentations, or additional information about the items in ARCHIE. CHM staff will review your submission and may email you to inquire further. The form can also be accessed here. 

Winter 2020-Spring 2021 updates

• As part of a larger museum policy we have changed and/or contextualized the language we use whenever Chicago’s incorporation day is celebrated, which has often been referred to as “Chicago’s birthday.” The word birthday connotes the “birth” or “beginning” of something. In the context of the city of Chicago, referring to the date of its incorporation by non-Indigenous settlers as its “birthday” is harmful, dismissive, and excludes the history of the Indigenous communities that have called this land home for thousands of years. Moving forward, we as an institution will no longer be referring to March 4th as the city’s birthday, and we are highlighting this language discrepancy in historical material that refers to “Chicago’s birthday.”
• Published a Disability Studies research guide, along with assessing our own titles, descriptions, and subject headings. The author, Ariel Robinson, also wrote about her process.
• Investigated our LBGTQIA+ holdings and made language changes and/or contextualizations where necessary, and published an LGBTQIA+ Studies research guide
• Introduced more local headings, particularly focusing on language changes regarding noncitizens, undocumented immigrants, enslaved persons, poor persons, Indigenous persons, and LGBTQIA+ persons and communities. This resource can now be found in the "Local Headings" box on the left.
• Rights and Reproductions introduced a "Help Us Improve This Content" form that is embedded within each digital image; we hope to introduce the same functionality to our library catalog, ARCHIE, soon. [Update: Link to a feedback form is now available at the bottom of ARCHIE's homepage. See "Summer & Fall 2021 updates"].

Fall 2020 updates

• Published this Critical Cataloging guide, along with two subject guides: Black and African American Studies and Latino/a/x Studies
• Through adjacent departments like Rights and Reproductions, Curatorial and Education we were able to implement language changes across more Chicago History Museum platforms

Summer 2020 updates

• Northwestern students with the Center for Civic Engagement investigated language usage in both our catalog ARCHIE, as well as other Chicago History Museum resources, and written three draft research guides for various groups in Chicago (Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples)
• Critical cataloging has been adopted by the museum as part of our institutional diversity, equity and inclusion strategic priorities
• Instituted monthly museum-wide meetings to discuss reparative language and representation across departments

Fall 2019-Spring 2020 updates

• Edited language in records about slavery documents following P. Gabrielle Foreman’s community sourced guidelines “Writing about Slavery/Teaching about Slavery: This Might Help”
• Investigated and started language changes for the disability community
• Investigated language changes for Indigenous identities, starting with recommendations from the Association of Manitoba Archives
• Followed Library of Congress’ 2016 recommendations and changed instances of “aliens” and “illegal aliens” in our subjects (not officially implemented by LOC, but changed in practice by many institutions)