UTARMS’ DESCRIPTIVE STYLE GUIDE

Daniela Ansovini, Emily Sommers, and Tys Klumpenhouwer

Last updated: 2024-09-27

1.1 Purpose

This style guide intends to provide direction for consistency in the description of private records’ at UTARMS. It aims to:

be a tool for archivists to understand the language and stylistic choices that shape how we represent and frame individuals, cultures, societies, and records themselves,
outline considerations that support description that is respectful, accurate to whom it represents, and accessible,
provide direction for specific areas where consistency is mandatory or preferred,
document our descriptive orientation, decision-making, and edits for the purpose of transparency and continued development towards equity in description within our department.

1.2 Background

These guidelines were written between 2022 and 2024 as a part of a project to evaluate UTARMS’ private records description and content. It specifically aimed to uncover and remediate features that could cause harm such as inaccurate and/or offensive terminology, cultural assumptions, omissions, and valorization. This document was generated through the process of researching and learning about approaches adopted in other archival institutions, language outlined by under-represented and systemically excluded groups, as well as an audit of UTARMS’ descriptions. Please see Section 9 and 10 for additional information about individuals and resources consulted.

The project grew out of recommendations from UTARMS’ Preliminary Private Records Analysis for Representation of Minoritized Groups report as well as equity, diversity, and inclusion objectives outlined by the department. More generally, this work reflects an increased awareness of how individual, cultural, and systemic bias pervade archival work. In the context of a colonial, Euro-Western archival institution, archival functions have sustained dominant historical narratives and other forms of white, hegemonic power, negatively impacting the individuals and communities who use, donate, and manage archival records.¹ Addressing archival description through this style guide aims to be one proactive method to mitigate future harm and to pursue an approach that is accountable to those we serve.

This guide was initially written by UTARMS Archivists, Daniela Ansovini and Emily Sommers. We are both white settlers who are cis-gendered women, working in an academic institution and profession that largely mirror these identities. We both live and work on the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Work on this project has been an opportunity to reflect on the legacy and continued forms of colonialism that surface through language and representation, the history of the institution itself, and the ways in which we approach our current work. It has also emphasized how our connections to people and place inform all aspects of our work and, in turn, the depth of our responsibility to attend to these relationships, in particular, those with Indigenous Nations.

Although we strive to address issues as we come across them, UTARMS’ commits to undertake a review of its descriptions every five years to ensure that archival descriptions are regularly maintained and updated with current terminology.

Endnotes

For further discussion of negative impacts of Eurocentric world views in archival description see, The Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives, “Reconciliation Framework: The Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce”, 2022, 48, https://archives2026.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/reconciliationframeworkreport_en.pdf. ↩