Doris introduces reparative and inclusive description for municipal archives
The Department of Records & Information Services (DORIS) has issued a formal approach to address bias and harm in archival descriptions. The policy, published as the Guidelines for reparative and inclusive description, aims to change how records are described and accessed. Its first application focused on the City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) collection. The move has implications for how communities find and interpret local history.
Who: DORIS, the municipal records agency, and staff working on the CCHR collection. What: a set of guidelines designed to identify and correct biased or harmful language in archival metadata. Where: within municipal archives and online finding aids. When: implemented as an ongoing program rather than a one-off project. Why: because description shapes research, public memory and civic accountability.
Archival descriptions determine which materials surface in searches and how they are framed. Biased terms and omission of context can obscure experiences of marginalized groups. DORIS’s guidelines require archivists to flag problematic language, add contextual notes and consult impacted communities. The agency also recommends revisions to subject headings and scope notes to reflect harm and historical power dynamics.
Applying the guidelines to the CCHR collection exposes tensions between institutional records and public narratives. The collection holds complaints, investigation files and policy documents that record municipal responses to discrimination and civil-rights disputes. Revising descriptions can surface cases and patterns previously hidden by neutral or euphemistic cataloging.
Policy changes in records practice echo earlier municipal efforts to shape public narratives. City agencies have long used reports, press statements and curated exhibits to influence civic memory. DORIS’s intervention shifts that authority toward more explicit acknowledgement of historical harm and silences within the record. It also raises questions about who decides corrective language and what standards govern those choices.
Implementation involves practical challenges. archivists must balance accuracy, privacy and legal constraints. Community consultation requires resources that many archival units lack. Anyone who has launched a product knows that signalling intent is easier than sustaining practice. I’ve seen too many initiatives expire when staffing and funding did not match ambition.
Early reactions from researchers and advocacy groups are mixed. Some observers welcome clearer context and restored visibility for harmed communities. Others warn about revisionist overreach and potential loss of original archival voice. Growth data tells a different story: improved discovery metrics and user feedback often follow targeted description revisions, but sustained impact depends on continuous monitoring and user-centered metrics.
Case studies to date show tangible benefits. Revising subject headings for discrimination complaints increased retrieval of related files in several pilot searches. Adding content warnings and explanatory notes helped researchers interpret case files without exposing sensitive details. Still, these wins required iterative edits and follow-up evaluation.
For municipal archivists and local officials, the lessons are practical. Prioritize transparent criteria for revision. Allocate budget for community engagement and staff training. Track discovery and access metrics before and after changes. Address privacy and legal constraints upfront. These steps reduce risk of tokenism and improve long-term sustainability.
The immediate outcome is procedural: new guidelines and an active pilot on the CCHR collection. The longer effect may be institutional: shifting archival labor toward explicit remediation of historical harms. Expect further pilots, public reporting on outcomes and debate over standards for reparative description.
Who: DORIS, the municipal records agency, and staff working on the CCHR collection. What: a set of guidelines designed to identify and correct biased or harmful language in archival metadata. Where: within municipal archives and online finding aids. When: implemented as an ongoing program rather than a one-off project. Why: because description shapes research, public memory and civic accountability.0
Why: because description shapes research, public memory and civic accountability.
Why a reparative description guide matters
Records and reporting do not merely record facts. They frame which lives appear, how those lives are described, and which details persist.
Media coverage of public figures, such as John F. Kennedy Jr, and scholarly catalogues demonstrate this framing effect. A 18/02/ Vanity Fair piece on George magazine underscores how editorial choices and imagery shape reputations over decades.
This matters for three reasons. First, researchers rely on descriptive metadata to find and interpret sources. Second, descriptors enter the broader circulation of public memory and influence civic narratives. Third, description affects accountability by determining which communities and events are visible to oversight.
Practical harms follow from careless description. Biased labels, missing context, or unexamined images can perpetuate stereotypes, erase contributions, or obscure state and institutional responsibility.
I’ve seen too many organizations underestimate the work required to fix those harms. Without a feedback loop, errors repeat and trust erodes.
What a reparative guide should require
A useful guide centers clear, verifiable standards. It should require training for cataloguers on historical bias and on-source verification. It should mandate provenance notes and standardized fields for contested terminology.
It should also embed community review. Communities tied to records must have pathways to propose corrections and contextual notes. Transparency about editorial choices helps researchers assess reliability.
Immediate steps archives can take
Start with simple, enforceable actions: audit high-impact collections for problematic descriptors, add provenance fields to digital records, and publish correction workflows.
Adopt editorial guidelines for images and captions to prevent reductive framing. Require citations for biographical claims added to descriptions. Track changes so users can see editorial histories.
Lessons from product work
Records and reporting do not merely record facts. They frame which lives appear, how those lives are described, and which details persist.0
Records and reporting do not merely record facts. They frame which lives appear, how those lives are described, and which details persist.1
Records and reporting do not merely record facts. They frame which lives appear, how those lives are described, and which details persist.2
The national archives unit DORIS drafted a set of principles to help archivists address problematic language and omissions in historical records. The document, titled Guidelines for reparative and inclusive description, offers practical approaches to common cataloging dilemmas. It is grounded in academic research and sustained community input.
The manual was finalized in the spring of . It builds on earlier agency work, including the Harmful Content statement and public engagement projects such as the In Her Own Name research-a-thon and the Records of Slavery transcription project. The guidelines aim to clarify when to retain historical language and when to provide context or corrective description. They also set standards for community consultation and transparent documentation of editorial choices.
Core principles and aims
Guide frames reparative description as contextual supplement to original records
The national unit presents reparative description as a method to acknowledge archival bias without altering original documents. It rejects the idea of a neutral archive, a position long argued by historians. The approach asks archivists to add contextual notes that improve discoverability for diverse users. The guide adopts a question-and-answer format to help staff manage sensitive topics, outdated terminology, and abrasive imagery within collections.
How the approach applies to the City Commission on Human Rights collection
The guide recommends that archivists attach contextual annotations to items in the City Commission on Human Rights collection. Those annotations should explain historical language, identify omissions, and note contested provenance. The manual also suggests inserting content warnings where imagery or language may harm users.
Archivists are advised to create cross-references that surface related materials written from marginalized perspectives. The guide urges transparent documentation of editorial choices so future users can trace why descriptions were amended or supplemented. It reiterates the need for community consultation when collections pertain to living groups or ongoing harms.
Practical steps for staff
The document lists concrete steps staff can follow. First, flag records containing outdated or offensive terminology. Second, add brief explanatory notes that situate terms in their historical context. Third, record the rationale and decision-maker for each annotation. Fourth, link to alternative sources that provide counter-narratives or missing perspectives.
Anyone who has launched a product knows the temptation to ship minimal fixes. I’ve seen too many projects treat contextual work as optional; growth data tells a different story: better metadata increases use and trust. The guide frames these interventions as discovery work, not censorship.
Implications for access and research
Implementing reparative description will change how researchers discover material in the City Commission collection. Enhanced descriptions should make marginalized voices more findable. They may also surface new research questions by highlighting gaps and absences in the record.
The guide positions reparative description as an ongoing practice. It calls for regular review of annotations and renewed consultation with impacted communities. It emphasizes that transparency and documentation are essential to maintain trust and scholarly rigor.
The CCHR collection served as an early, practical test for the guide. The commission’s records cover decades of complaints, investigations, and administrative work on discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public accommodation. Archivists rehoused and processed 268 cubic feet of material and digitized the initial 53 cubic feet as part of a project funded through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission’s Documenting Democracy initiative beginning in March, .
During processing, the team preserved original folder titles to retain historical accountability. They added reparative descriptions in brackets to modernize language and improve access. This method preserves the documentary evidence of past harms while directing contemporary users toward current search terms and terminology.
The project emphasizes that transparency and documentation are essential to maintain trust and scholarly rigor. I’ve seen too many projects erase context in the name of accessibility; this approach seeks a different balance by keeping source language visible and adding clarifying, reparative notes.
Examples of redescription choices
Building on the guide’s principles, the commission retained original wording while adding clarifying annotations to aid contemporary readers. A meeting folder labeled “Department of Welfare Request Regarding Alleged Discrimination in Lodging Houses Against Negro Homeless Men” was kept verbatim. Staff appended bracketed updates to reflect current terminology: Negro [Black] Hom
Archives and the press face scrutiny for framing and representation
Staff appended bracketed updates to reflect current terminology: Negro [Black] Hom. That practice echoes an earlier civic effort to correct media portrayals.
The City Commission’s predecessor created a Subcommittee on press treatment of minority groups to review local journalism for biased or inflammatory reporting. The subcommittee supplied analyses of reporting patterns and engaged newspaper editors to mitigate harmful coverage. It treated the press as a public institution accountable for how communities were represented.
Archivists now apply similar scrutiny to their own descriptive choices. File titles, headlines and catalog entries shape how records are discovered and interpreted. By annotating historical descriptions instead of erasing them, reparative description aims to increase transparency and enable accountability.
I’ve seen too many initiatives promise change without mechanisms for oversight. Successful reform requires clear standards, public reporting and ongoing dialogue between communities, archivists and the press.
Those procedural steps matter because language determines which histories surface and which remain obscured. Reparative description does not rewrite the record. It provides context so users can assess sources on their own terms.
Project outputs and community engagement
Staff published an online finding aid, produced social media content and blog posts, and launched a digital exhibit to surface the collection and the methodological work behind its description. The materials aim to help researchers and community members locate records and understand how those records were described.
This work is ongoing. Staff are refining the guide as new situations arise and continuing consultations with communities most affected by the records. The consultations inform wording, access pathways and contextual notes.
The effort reflects a broader institutional shift in how public repositories manage historical language. Institutions are taking explicit responsibility for the terms they apply and the routes they create into the historical record. Those changes seek to improve accessibility, acknowledge harms embedded in older descriptive practices and build a more inclusive foundation for future research.
I’ve seen too many organizations treat description as neutral when it is not. Growth data tells a different story: changes to description alter discoverability and research outcomes. Anyone who works with archives knows that small wording choices change who finds what and why.
Archivists say the project will continue to evolve as consultations produce new guidance. Staff expect additional updates and edits to the finding aid and exhibit based on community feedback and ongoing review.
Staff to refine finding aid and exhibit using reparative description guide
Staff will continue updating the online finding aid and digital exhibit based on community feedback and internal review. The work will happen at the Municipal Archives and in collaboration with community partners. The process aims to correct harmful naming and improve access while retaining documentary accuracy.
The Municipal Archives’ reparative description guide provides a practical framework for that work. It recommends transparent labeling, documented decision trails and community consultation. Those measures help reconcile historical recordkeeping with present-day standards for dignity and inclusion.
I’ve seen too many institutions treat descriptive changes as cosmetic. Growth data tells a different story: careful renaming reduces search friction and increases public use. Anyone who has maintained archival collections knows that measurable improvements in discoverability follow modest, documented edits.
Staff expect further edits as review continues and new input arrives. The next update will reflect both technical corrections and community priorities, ensuring the finding aid serves researchers and the public with greater clarity and respect.
