Reparative Description, Indigenous Partners, and the SNAC Edit-a-thon

Abstract

The Social Networks and Archival Context—a.k.a. SNAC—is a free, online resource that helps users discover biographical and historical information about individuals, families, and organizations that created or are documented in primary sources and to see their connections to one another. Users can find archival materials from cultural heritage institutions around the world. In ongoing efforts to increase diverse representation of entities in SNAC and to ensure that records related to Indigenous and Native communities are described in ways that reflect and respect them, SNAC hosted an “edit-a-thon” on October 11–12, 2021. This event, held during Indigenous People’s Day, extended the work of SNAC’s 2020 edit-a-thon centering Indigenous records and consciously included a greater Indigenous presence by having an Indigenous advisory board, targeting outreach to Indigenous participants, and developing an Indigenous editorial guide. The event resulted in important cultural protocols and workflows, a new Editorial Guide for Indigenous Descriptions in SNAC, and better representation for over 50 SNAC records.