We’re excited to share a series of blog posts featuring the students and workers involved in the 3CV Project!
In these posts, they’ll reflect on their experiences, both before joining and after being part of the project. Offering insights into their learning journeys, challenges, and growth. Through these stories, participants will also share about their time with 3CV, and how it has influenced their skills, knowledge, and career paths.
Read ahead to hear firsthand stories about how the project has impacted their education, work and perspectives on controlled vocabulary development!
Metadata Research Assistant
Asmita Gupta
South Asian Canadian Digital Archive (SACDA) actively collects, digitizes, and digitally preserves resources associated with the South Asian diaspora in Canada. SACDA is an initiative of the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley.
Information about the archival resources is documented using an integrated schema from Rules for Archival Description (RAD) and Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) as metadata schema, and a combination of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM), Thesaurus for Geographic Names (TGN) and Canadian Geographical Names Database (CGNDB) for thesauri and geographic tagging, alongside internally developed guidelines to ensure accurate representation of the resources. Despite its wide usage in libraries and archives, LCSH lacks the terms that meaningfully reflect South Asian culture and heritage. This gap led to the development of local thesauri at SACDA.
The SACDA thesauri were developed and maintained in a spreadsheet. My work for the term focused on evaluating the feasibility of transitioning the local thesauri from the spreadsheet to an open-source, web-based ontology management tool, VocBench. A major part of this phase involved installing the tool on a local system and converting the SACDA thesauri to VocBench-compatible thesauri.
This conversion involved applying Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) namespaces to test features of VocBench including multilingual term representations, scope/editorial notes for terms, term relationships (e.g., narrower terms, broader terms, related terms), and to determine a public-facing thesauri for the community.
To generate multilingual labels, term translations were reconciled with Wikidata using OpenRefine. Much of the effort was dedicated to understanding SKOS namespaces and converting the transformed spreadsheet into an RDF file for project creation and term import into VocBench.
The reason for determining the feasibility of this transition was to leverage the multilingual capabilities of VocBench and to create a publicly accessible thesauri for the community.
Based on my current analysis and findings, future work could involve:
- Determining the public-facing system (the look and feel, the terms) using ShowVoc, a sister application to VocBench that allows users to browse datasets without editing permissions.
- Exploring the feasibility of maintaining a Name Authority File for SACDA within VocBench.
To learn more, please explore the links below:
South Asian Canadian Digital Archive
Graduate Academic Assistant
Seiji Bessho
Introduction
My role in the 3CV Project was working with the Autism and/or Intellectual Disability Knowledge Exchange Network Canada(AIDE Canada) Library, an organization dedicated to supporting autistic and intellectual disability communities across Canada. AIDE Canada Library collects, maintains and lends out materials about autism and intellectual disability for free. You can visit their website here to learn about the organization or see here for the library page.
My job as the graduate academic assistant (GAA) was centred on two objectives: gathering information regarding existing work about community-based taxonomy for the autistic/ID community and planning the next steps for the project. We designed these steps to inform the next steps of improving the AIDE Canada taxonomy.
Exploring Existing Literature
The existing literature about community-based taxonomy for the autistic/ID community was, much to my disappointment, little to none. Current literature does not consider the needs of autistic/ID communities, nor does it explore their language preferences. While the medical field has taken a recent interest in conducting a very limited, surface-level mixed-method research of language preferences, they focus on preferences between Person-First Language (PFL, i.e., person with autism) and Identity-First Language (IFL, i.e., autistic person). These studies suggested a greater preference for IFL, though there was no decisive consensus, and none went into depth about language preferences. This lack of studies meant two things. First, we have nothing to inform our development of the AIDE Canada taxonomy. Second, we would need to conduct a study to find out the language preferences of our community outside of the IFL vs PFL debate.
Exploring AIDE Canada Taxonomy
After assessing the literature (or the lack thereof), I began analyzing the AIDE Canada taxonomy to understand areas that required community consultation. I specifically looked for vocabulary that appeared too broad and underrepresented topics by looking into how frequently terms were used, as well as how they were used in the catalogue. For example, one of the terms inspected was “sensory issues.” My analysis suggested that this term was potentially too broad to label books focusing on specific sensory needs, especially as there were no ways to narrow down the search results for specific books using the existing taxonomy.
Conclusion What does this all mean? Simply put, it means we have a lot more work to do. We need to develop our understanding of the needs of the autism/ID community and create a method to incorporate their feedback to refine our taxonomy. I’ve begun planning the next steps, but we have nothing concrete yet. We are hoping to begin reaching out to the autism/ID community to receive their feedback and input on the existing systems soon. While I am leaving the project (I graduated!), I hope this project will continue and bring forth the voices of a very
Project Assistant
Saniya Nadeem
Being a part of the 3CV project as a project assistant has been an amazing experience for me. It has allowed me to explore topics I care about while learning new perspectives. The initiative is a response to the systemic biases that are embedded within the traditional library and archival classification systems. By focusing on community-centered vocabulary work, 3CV aims to create more inclusive and accurate ways of cataloging and accessing information for marginalized communities. It also allows students to be a part of this experience and allows them gain hands-on experience from the different organizations that are a part of the project. This is a good way for students to be able to develop their skills and broaden their focus on the different types of work that is available in libraries and research.
Before joining this project, I had used libraries and archives as a student, but I never really questioned how subjects were categorized or whose perspectives were prioritized within these systems. I often found it difficult to research certain topics, especially when looking for materials in different languages, but I never considered why. Looking back, I now realize that traditional classification systems often reflect cultural and historical biases that marginalize specific communities and languages. Working on the 3CV project has helped me understand how much power exists in language and classification, and how important it is to create systems that reflect the diversity of human experiences. I think it is important to bridge and fill in the gaps so that information is more accessible to all. I also feel that by being able to access more information, we will create long-term implications that will impact our future in various ways, especially through the research that people do.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this project has been knowing that our work will have long-term implications. The solutions we are developing can help other students and researchers and stop them from facing similar challenges. It is really amazing for me to be able to contribute to such meaningful work, one that doesn’t just point out problems but seeks to create solutions that can be implemented and adapted.
The work of the 3CV project is just getting started. Moving forward, I am really excited about the further discussions our efforts can create and how they will influence discussions and decisions within the community. By documenting and sharing our processes, with the community through various presentations and workshops we hope to teach others in the field to engage in community-centered vocabulary work and be more inclusive.
We have also been conducting multiple workshops and they have been really insightful for me and for anyone interested in the work or doing similar work to learn and adapt to their own projects. By planning and preparing for these workshops, I have had the opportunity to not only deepen my understanding of the topics and work but also develop skills in community engagement and event planning. Theses workshops also provide a good networking opportunity for people with similar goals to discuss and work on projects within the community. It also allows people to share ideas and learn from one another. One of the things I appreciate most about working on this project is the collaborative nature of the work. It has been a privilege to learn from my peers and from professionals in the field who are dedicated to this work and are open to sharing their knowledge with others. The knowledge and skills I have gained through this project will continue to influence me in my future endeavors.
On a day-to-day basis, my work revolves around collaborating with project partners and students, assisting wherever needed. My position has also given me the opportunity to manage the project’s social media, promoting our efforts so that more people can learn about and engage with our work. Through my involvement in this project, I have started to see libraries and archives as more than just places to store information. They have the power to be spaces of representation, empowerment, and inclusivity when they are designed with intentionality. This experience has strengthened my belief in the importance of knowledge equity and the need for these institutions to be more inclusive. Reflecting on my journey as a project assistant, I feel deeply grateful for the opportunity to be part of such meaningful work. I look forward to continuing this journey and playing a role in making libraries and archives more accessible, and inclusive for everyone.