Congratulations to our own Dr. Tonia Sutherland, who has been awarded a 3-year $357,000 grant from the US IMLS Laura Bush 21st Century Librarianship Grant program to study Redescription as Restorative Justice in American Archives!
Under this grant, Dr. Sutherland will “seek to identify existing—and make recommendations for future—professional practices for culturally responsive decision making about archival redescription. Asking questions such as when and why redescription practices are engaged, what role improved access as a result of digitization plays in motivations for redescription, when and how mass digitization results in harmful description at scale, and how aggregation amplifies and legitimizes problematic description, this research in service to practice project will address growing concerns that have arisen at the intersection of description and digitization, identify developing redescription practices that model archival harm reduction, and make recommendations for culturally responsive redescription in U.S. archives.”
We are so proud of Dr. Sutherland and look forward to the results of her project!