Invited Talk 3: Complexities of Archival Metadata

Legacy metadata for historical collections has traditionally been retained for a range of logistical, evidentiary and accountability reasons. Reparative archival description and progressive bibliography movements have raised critical questions about equity, appropriateness and potential trauma associated with this metadata and have variously advocated for updating, annotating, removing or hiding it from public view. Even newly created metadata for historical collections, however, ages and is differently received according to the context and needs of the user. Drawing upon two collections of historical materials, this presentation will consider issues of age and evidence that arise when assigning metadata to archival collections whose digitized content and expected use move across time, geographies, communities, generations and political shifts. The collections that will be considered will be the Archive of the National Debt Redemption Movement in Daegu, South Korea, whose content chronicles the entire process and history of a nationwide campaign undertaken by the Korean public from 1907 to 1910 to help their government repay a huge external debt and thereby protect their national sovereignty; .and the Hyung-ju Ahn Collection, held at the UCLA East Asian Library, of oral histories from 1902-1945 of pastors, scholars, journalists, and other leaders within the Korean community who arrived in Hawaii and either settled there or later migrated to, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Central America.