1. Cultivating a Post-Custodial Praxis:
Insights from LLILAS Benson's
Community of Colaboradores
Society of American Archivists Conference | August 5, 2019 | Austin, Texas
Sched Link: https://sched.co/NjRH

2. Panel Abstract
For more than a decade, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections has
supported post-custodial partnerships with community and cultural heritage
organizations to protect vulnerable historical records in Latin America. This panel
highlights diverse experiences and roles of post-custodial archivists, traditional
archivists, and scholars in collaboratively developing and implementing post-custodial
projects. The panelists offer insights and lessons learned from their engagement with
each other and these projects to underscore the collaborative value of the model.
Itza A. Carbajal: Metadata Development and Decisions
Dylan Joy: Collaborating on a Post Custodial Project as an Archivist in Special Collections
Edward Shore: Collaborating as a Scholar and Researcher for a Post-custodial Project
Theresa Polk: Moderator

3. CIRMA
Centro de Investigaciones
Regionales de Mesoamérica
Antigua, Guatemala
CIDCA
Centro de Investigación y
Documentación de la Costa Atlántica
Bluefields, Nicaragua
MUPI
El Museo de la Palabra y la
Imagen
San Salvador, El Salvador
Fondo Real de Cholula
Tribunal Superior de Justicia
del Estado de Puebla
Puebla, Mexico
PCN
Proceso de Comunidades
Negras
Buenaventura, Colombia
ISA/EAACONE
Instituto Socioambiental
Equipe de Articulação e Assessoria às
Comunidades Negras do Vale do Ribeira
Eldorado, Brazil
Post Custodial Partners

4. Post-Custodial Team at LLILAS Benson
Minnie Rangel
Senior Software
Developer/Analyst
Theresa Polk
Post-Custodial Archivist /
Head of Digital Initiatives
Itza Carbajal
Latin American Metadata Librarian
David Bliss
Digital Processing Archivist
Rachel Winston
Black Diaspora Archivist
Benson Special CollectionsKelly Mcdonough
UT Faculty
Spanish & Portuguese
Anthony Dest
Ph.D Student
LLILAS
Edward Shore
Ph.D Student/Post Doc
LLILAS
Dylan Joy
Latin American Archivist
Benson Special Collections

5. Itza Carbajal, Latin American Metadata Librarian
Metadata Development & Decisions

6. Metadata Paradigm Shift
➔ View contributions as a memory work as both direct & indirect, support
centered, speculative and based from the privilege of a large US based
institution.
➔ Invested in decentering exclusive “expert status” of institutional
archivists and librarians.
➔ Reframing the role of a post custodial metadata practitioner from one
of sole management and ownership to one focused on consultation,
development of tools and resources, and ongoing support.
➔ Commitment to both undoing, avoiding, or addressing past and current
harmful practices of misrepresentation, erasure, ignorance, or exclusion.

7. ➔ Concept in this context proposed by Post Custodial archivist Theresa Polk
➔ Modeled after technical debt meaning the implied cost of additional work
caused by choosing an easy or limited solution at the beginning instead
of using a better, slower, or more expensive approach.
➔ Related to monetary debt in respect to notion of acquired interest
➔ Debt (like financial debt) must be paid at some point
➔ Metadata accumulates debt that ends in deficient information less
consistency, completeness, accuracy, adherence, sensitivity more
redundancy, inaccuracies, disrespect.
Historical Debt

8. Metadata Librarian Active Partnerships
University Faculty Doctoral Students
International PartnersNon-Post Custodial Staff
Consultation on areas of expertise (handling, condition
assessment, scope of collecting focus)
Act as surrogate for metadata training
Eventually also become proxy for other metadata efforts
Contribution to areas of expertise based on personal,
organizational, and cultural knowledge
Provide feedback and direction on priority areas for metadata
Consult on terminology or local lexicon that will be mapped to
standard terms
Consult on relationship building with international
partners
Local feedback on proposed metadata template and
resources
Translate or help negotiate compromises
Incorporate into classroom instruction/research
Consult on relationship building with international partners
Local feedback on proposed metadata template and resources
Translate or help negotiate compromises
Guide on future efforts and decisions around classroom instruction
Incorporate into research