AMIA 2020

How can archivists respond to the recent movement for cultural institutions to reassess racist and colonial works within their collections? This session will identify a number of paths forward, and will help attendees figure out what they should do. Speakers will first contextualize the problem within the history of cinema and of archives. They will then identify and explain the implications of a wide range of possible actions: from doing nothing, to withdrawing works, to encouraging remixing, to various forms of contextualization (annotating catalog records, adding an introduction to each work, altering discovery metadata, placing warning notices on works, …). Speakers will discuss issues and present many examples. Half the session will be devoted to formal presentation, and the other half will consist of discussion. The goal is to stimulate attendees to interact and respond, then go back to their collections and think about what they might do with their problematic works.