A newsletter to learn about practical ways to decolonize your research and data work-lives with byte-sized drabbles about the daily life of a data professional.

Behind-the-Scenes: I Gave a Talk at the UK National Archives

I gave a talk at the National Archives in late January for the official book launch of Archives and Emotions: International Dialogues Across Past, Present, and Future. The book is about emotional dynamics, emotions, and emotional effects on archivists, researchers, and the construction of archives.

My long-time collaborator Kristen Nyitray and I wrote a chapter on the unspoken expected emotional labor of archivists in the United States and the way archival laborers adopt personas (masked behaviors basically) to cope at work. Prior to this publication, Kristen and I usually wrote for more data science specific publishers - IFLA, ALA, SAA, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly - and this was our first history field publication!

I had such a great experience with this talk, book, and the book editors. The book editors - Illaria Scaglia and Valeria Vanesio - made the event feel like this publication was something to be proud of. I don’t see a lot of cultural heritage professionals diving into interdisciplinary research in the way that I do. I highly recommend working on white papers, research, or other forms of publications (blog posts, ads, etc) with peers outside your own workplace, country, and field.

Industry Insights: Web Accessibility in GLAM

I’ve been thinking a lot about web accessibility lately. From an accessibility standpoint, code and web design are a usability/user experience (UX) design issue. UX and accessibility aren’t always practical to data work especially in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) where we’re often specializing in a niche skill. Here are three resources you should be aware of:

Digital A11Y’s List of Accessibility Testing Browser Extensions

DigitalA11y is a brand name to know for web accessibility, functionality and usability testing of digital content. The list includes extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge browsers and automatically test a wide gamut of accessibility like color contrast, test against WCAG 2.0/2.1 A/AA rulesets, and ARIA usage. Note: They continuously update the list!

W3C-WAI Web Accessibility Testing/Evaluation Resources

W3C-WAI is what you pick up after you learn the basics of web accessibility. It goes through the general workflow of testing accessibility like initial checks and comparing against technical standards like Section 508/WCAG 2.2 AA. WCAG is an international, universal standard for web accessibility.

Section 508 Accessibility Testing for Websites and Software

Section 508 is a US legally-required technical standard for federal agencies to make their IT tools, systems, and web content accessibility. You might see private companies or non-federal organizations voluntarily comply with Section 508 in the field; as a technical standard, it gives you good technical checklists and overlaps with some of WCAG 2.0 A/AA standards.

Let’s Create!

I’m open to collaborations, freelance gigs, and conversations about the ideas I shared. Feel free to get in touch and comment on the newsletter.