Poster

Other Voices, Other Stories: Redescribing Records of the Milwaukee Open Housing Movement During COVID-19

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Abstract

2020 provided a host of new challenges for archives, resulting in cultural and technological shifts in how we complete our work. As a field student working at the UW–Milwaukee Libraries Archives during the fall semester of 2020, I was involved in reparative metadata creation for the archives’ March on Milwaukee digital collections, which contain records on the civil rights movement and open housing marches in Milwaukee during the 1960s and 70s. In my poster presentation, I will describe how the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 impacted my approach to describing collections on systemic inequality in Milwaukee. While describing my approach to metadata creation, using the descriptive methods espoused by Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia, I will examine how archival redescription can allow for a new understanding of figures, events, and ideologies from the Milwaukee marches. I will also examine how principles of social justice and anti-racism can be applied in digital spaces. Finally, I will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing affected archival workflows in 2020. In the case of the UW-Milwaukee Archives, the pandemic resulted in a new focus on digital projects and outreach, including my work in the March on Milwaukee collections.

How to Cite:

Sterner, J., (2021) “Other Voices, Other Stories: Redescribing Records of the Milwaukee Open Housing Movement During COVID-19”, MAC Annual Meeting Presentations 2021(1).