Wages for Intern Work: Denormalizing Unpaid Positions in Archives and Libraries

While no comprehensive studies have yet been published quantifying the extent of unpaid internships within archives and libraries, their prevalence is easily recognized as widespread. Unpaid internships are offered and facilitated based on the implication that they correlate positively to future job prospects, although recent studies point to evidence that complicates this idea. Instead, the prevalence of unpaid internships may negatively impact efforts for diversity and inclusion among information workers while contributing to greater precarity of labor throughout the workforce. Meanwhile, professional organizations and academic programs often do not discuss the realities of unpaid internships, and some MLIS programs require or encourage students to work without remuneration for course credit at their own expense. Situating unpaid internships within larger questions of economic access, labor laws, indebtedness, and neoliberalization, this paper advocates for the denormalization of unpaid internships within archives and libraries, especially for those institutions that articulate social justice as part of their institutional values. Although rendering these positions obsolete is likely beyond the power of any one entity, this paper identify strategies that can be taken at the individual- and institutional-level to advance economic justice and the dignity of all work that occurs in our respective fields. Pre-print first published online11/25/201

Points of Connection: Using Wikidata for Art Information

Wikidata is a free, open, and multilingual knowledge base that serves as the structured data for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Staff at many libraries, archives, and museums have found that Wikidata provides an accessible method of making information about collections and resources available as linked open data, which in turn enables greater discoverability, new audiences, and innovative forms of research. This panel featured case studies from art institutions where Wikidata projects are underway. Many of the featured projects highlighted the use of Wikidata for identity management, such for artist names, both as an alternative to and alongside vocabularies traditionally used in art information. Panelists spoke to how their respective Wikidata projects support the interests of researchers and broader institutional efforts. Together, the presented projects demonstrated how Wikidata’s relatively low barrier to entry allows institutions to connect data that might otherwise be siloed in local repositories

Title and Statement of Responsibility

Some forms of exhibition documentation, such as brochures or checklists, are produced in-house and may present bibliographical information in an unconventional fashion, requiring the cataloger to look well beyond the title page or even beyond the publication itself. Exhibition publications often require more use of cataloger's judgment, and more intervention in terms of transposing, omitting, and supplying data. Decision-making about the choice of a primary access point can be quite involved. And cataloging exhibition publications is probably more affected by local practices and guidelines than any other area of art documentation, since catalogers who work at institutions that mount or host exhibitions are often expected to provide more detail about their own institutions' publications. Though these are local practices, it is useful to alert other catalogers to this phenomenon

Notes

The ARLIS/NA Cataloging Advisory Committee has drafted these best practices to provide practical guidance to catalogers working with art exhibition publications. The guidelines are confined to cataloging issues and situations characteristic of this type of material; they are intended to be used with and are compatible with other cataloging documentation including Resource Description and Access (RDA) and LC-PCC Policy Statements and Metadata Guidance Documents. Examples have been given using the MARC21 format for consistency and familiarity, but MARC21 is not a prescribed or preferred schema. The order of notes in this document generally follows the WEMI framework but can be adjusted for local practice or when it has been decided that a particular note is of primary importance

Assigning Subject and Genre/Form Headings

These best practices are concerned with applying the Library of Congress Subject Headings to art exhibition publications, and are intended for use with the relevant sections of the Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual. Assigning subject headings to exhibition publications presents a great opportunity for the exercise of cataloger’s judgment. Not only are art exhibition publications frequently published with little information about their subject beyond an artist’s name and a short checklist, but the existing bibliographic records that catalogers follow as examples can vary widely according to local practices. Many of these practices can depart from established standards published in the Library of Congress Subject Headings Manual