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Ana Hilda Figueroa de Jesús will be graduating next spring from the Universidad de Puerto Rico in Río Piedras with a BA in History of Art. Her research interest focuses on education, accessibility and publicity of minority, revolutionary Puerto Rican art including topics such as race, gender and transnationalism. She has interned at Visión Doble: Journal of Criticism and History of Art, and volunteered at MECA International Art Fair 2019 and Instituto Nueva Escuela. Ana works as assistant for the curator and director of the Museum of History, Anthropology and Art at UPR. She is currently a Katzenberger Art History Intern at Smithsonian Libraries. Community, a repeated concept during the 2020 Virtual DLF Forum, transitioned from a word to a mantra. From my home in Puerto Rico, I listened and learned from peers who shared their professional and academic experiences. It was my first time attending this Forum. Lots of questions popped into my mind, particularly: Why would staff insist on creating a virtual “community,” of four days duration, with an audience currently experiencing and being exposed to social injustice within their surroundings and media? What does “building a community” mean?  I would like to thank the DLF staff’s commitment. When I received notice that I was selected as a Community Journalist, my first observation was my last name. The correct spelling and grammar of my name are much more than my cover letter, it represents and brings value to where I come from and those who came before me. I noticed the correct inclusion of the accent mark on “de Jesús.” In that moment I knew my voice would be respected in the discourse. The physical distance between attendees was no obstacle. The Forum implemented digital platforms such as Slack and Aviary. Presentations included transcripts and, since they were previously recorded, I could pause and rewind the video when a new term was introduced. If anyone had a tech problem or just wasn’t familiar with the apps, staff was available to help immediately. Each speaker mentioned their preferred pronouns and acknowledged the indigenous homelands from where they spoke. Being inclusive both in theory and practice was a priority. As a Puerto Rican woman of color with low resources, a first-generation college student and an undergraduate scholar, I saw benefit in this opportunity.   The Forum sessions reminded me of particular aspects of archives as spaces of data justice, cultural and social responsibility, knowledge production, and alternate historical narratives. In Mitigating Bias Through Controlled Vocabularies, Juliet Hardesty explained the importance of being conscious of racial categories, first nation groups, non-binary people, and others when including metadata such as subjects, genres, and languages. As an example, she discussed linked data across institutions and the distinction between “exactMatch” and “closeMatch.” Through this conference, I sought to learn and carry out new interdisciplinary perspectives in my roles as a Katzenberger Art History Intern at Smithsonian Institution Libraries and as an Assistant to the Curator and Director at the History, Anthropology and Art Museum of the University of Puerto Rico. One of the most relevant presentations for me was Curationist: Designing a Metadata Standard and Taxonomy for an Open Cultural Ecosystem by Sharon Mizota. She explained the anti-colonialist, anti-racist, feminist, queer, accessible, and multilingual lens of data. Also, she examined taxonomy guidelines that included sensitive subject areas. To illustrate this, she reflected on adopting the terms “Latinx” instead of “Latino” or “Hispanic,” and “homeless people” instead of “homelessness” or “tramp.”  I also attended discussions of human rights movements such as BLM, Community Activism and Digital Archiving in the Era of George Floyd. Other social matters were considered in the lightning talk titled Pandemic Pivot: How to Take Your Event Online, Reach New Audiences, and Build Even Stronger Communities, and the panel Creating a Virtual Community for Virtual Reality: Challenges and Solutions for Program Building During a Pandemic. Another engaging talk was US Latino Digital Humanities: Recovering the Past, Creating the Future. I would like to mention a crucial keynote by Dr. Linda Garcia Merchant when discussing Chicana feminist scholar Maria Cotera, [The importance of understanding] “the archive as a living active experience of “encuentro” between the present and the past, with the potential to enact new strategies of allegiance and a new praxis”. I believe that this idea of encounter is linked with the DLF Forum’s “building a community” proposal.  We must review our reactions and interactions with each other, including those within academia. Our involvement with the writing of histories makes us judges of how and what is told. Something I learned from this experience is that beyond our professional responsibilities, we have a social contract and accountability. Information must be accessible to traditionally marginalized public. Stories, agents and terms that once were excluded from the official narrative must be taken into consideration. The 2020 Virtual DLF Forum included more than spaces for education. It was about feedback, mutual aid, being open to new perspectives, and building a community.     Related Previous Next   What's the DLF? networked member institutions and a robust community of practice—advancing research, learning, social justice, & the public good through the creative design and wise application of digital library technologies Contact CLIR+DLF c/o WeWork (CLIR) 12th Floor 2221 South Clark Street Arlington, VA 22202 E: info@diglib.org Elsewhere Twitter Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Email RSS Community Calendar #DLFteach Twitter Chat December 15, 2020 at 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm More info at https://wiki.diglib.org/Pedagogy Discovering Wesselmann - Virtual Event on Archives and CR Research December 16, 2020 at 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm Discovering Wesselmann: A Webinar from the WPIOn December 16th, the Wildenstein Platter Institute will host a conversation between our archivist, Samantha Rowe, and the project manager for the Tom Wesselmann Catalogue Raisonné, Huffa Frobes-Cross. Looking at the Tom Wesselmann Papers and the artist’s work, Huffa and Samantha will discuss how archival research intersects with and supports the development of this catalogué raisonne project. The role of… DCMI Open Meeting on Application Profiles December 17, 2020 at 11:00 am – 12:00 pm Online DCMI Open Meeting on Application ProfilesDecember 17 - 16:00 UTC (8am PST, 11am EST, 5pm CET)Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is holding an open meeting to discuss a new work product, a specification for tabular application profiles.Many communities today create application profiles (APs) for their data. However, we lack a standard that would help those… More events & links here. On Twitter “As a first-time #DLFforum participant, I am grateful to have been able to participate in this year’s virtual forum… https://t.co/UPg23pbSFS18 hours ago Want to talk pedagogy and how it went in 2020? Need ideas for 2021? Talk with us tomorrow, Tuesday, December 15, at… https://t.co/qgi2SwZs7r20 hours ago Libraries, archives, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning: the Job Board is the place to find… https://t.co/WjnL4LruC222 hours ago Unless otherwise indicated, content on this site is available for re-use under CC BY-SA 4.0 License CLIR