Join industry colleagues for an essential speed round of notable projects, initiatives, success stories, and experiments that originated over the past year. Catch up, stay informed, and learn what’s next. Nicole Duguay discusses the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in Metadata Working Group. Link to video presentation: https://youtu.be/ZeyvmAid4Pg Presented March 31, 2021 by BookNet Canada with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

1. Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in
Metadata Working Group
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2. About Me
• She/her
• Responsible for marketing and metadata at Lorimer
– Our kids imprint is driven by diverse books and voices
• Was researching codelists and best practices for contributor-level
information only to find out…not much exists
• Informal discussions with BookNet let to the formation of a working
group to address the topic of contributor-level information
• Now chair of the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in Metadata Working
Group!
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3. Definitions
Diversity
• Blanket term used to inadequately represent marginalized groups,
attributes, etc.
e/d/i
• Equity, diversity, and inclusion
• Known as EDI outside of publishing, but abbreviated as above to
avoid confusion
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4. About the Working Group
• Formed on Sep 17, 2020, by the Canadian Bibliographic Committee
• All activities are approached with the intent of being inclusive,
purposeful, and respectful
• Group members speak as individuals, not as representatives of their
organization, special interest group, or community
• Intentionally diverse
– Job departments, titles and tenureSupply chain position
– Race and ethnicity
– Gender and sexuality
• Includes people not traditionally engaged in standards work
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5. Current Practices
• Industry already collects, stores & shares sensitive contributor
information as it relates to so-called “diversity” attributes
– I.e., places, dates, gender (although rarely used)
• This process is not transparent and is not standardized in any way
– Varies from company to company
– Contributors often get very little input on what’s being said about
them
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6. The Big Question
• Should the Canadian book industry actively collect, store, and share
so-called “diverse” attributes about contributors?
– How can this information best be communicated amongst relevant
stakeholders?
– What are best practices for current and future collection and use of
this data?
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7. Goals
• Advise the Canadian Bibliographic Committee in selecting the
wisest course of action to communicate e/d/i information about
products and contributors
• Proposal, guidelines, or best practices
• Consider various stakeholder goals, issues, environmental factors
and concerns, and find the appropriate balance among competing
interests
– Contributors (authors, illustrators, etc.)
– Publishers
– Retailers (including libraries)
– Book buyers / readers
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8. Group Charter
1. Conduct a thorough landscape review of current standards
available to communicate e/d/i information
2. Establish the distinction between communicating e/d/i
information about the product vs contributor
3. Identify e/d/i attributes that could be applied to contributors
in product metadata
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9. Process
• Invite-only sessions — not recorded
• Minutes shared with confidentiality watermarking
• “Substitutions” and “observers” not allowed
• Anonymous feedback form sent to Chair and lead BookNet
organizer
• Everything (meeting dates, discussion points) polled with
transparent responses
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10. Early Takeaways
• Need to communicate best practices to industry on existing
handling of information about contributors regardless if the
industry increases this practice going forward
• OwnVoices BISAC categories (introduced Dec 2020) take a similar
approach of classifying data related to contributors
– Limitations considering intersectionality necessitates defined best
practice / usage notes
– E.g., when Own Voices is used as a subject, the data sender should
reduce ambiguity and specify how the book is Own Voices in
descriptive text
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11. Early Takeaways
Initial discussions framed by two scenarios:
1. Where the contributor’s identity relates to the book’s content
– E.g., a book about LGBTQ content in comic books written by a queer
author
– In practice, very similar to Own Voices
2. Where the contributor’s identity does not relate directly to the book’s
content
– E.g., a book about the comic book industry written by a queer author
– When is lived experience irrelevant?
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12. Case Study
Canadian author indicator
• Implemented to meet the needs of the Canadian industry, distinct from
worldwide needs
• A piece of contributor-level data
• Canadians want to read books written by other Canadians, even if the
content is unrelated to Canada itself
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13. Coming Soon
• Public webinar
– To inform the people who are impacted by this kind of data collection
(contributors) about current practices as well as our new concepts
– To serve as a method of gathering information from Canadian
contributors to see if their needs and concerns are being met
– Mid-May to allow adequate time for registration
– Will be followed by a questionnaire to gather feedback from attendees
and other industry people, especially contributors
• First white paper (post-webinar) summarizing responses from
contributors and marginalized community members
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14. Coming Soon
• Identify a consultant / community organizer to weigh in on the
issues of privacy, protection, consent, trauma, and harm that our
conversations have brought up
• Address gaps in current working group membership
– Contributors
– Disability representation
– Independent bookstores
• Evaluation of next steps
– The future of the project looks different depending on what we learn
from community engagement
– Benefits vs risks for involved parties
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15. Possible Future Work
• Discuss existing vs. new structure to support this kind of metadata
– Thema / other ONIX-based / non-ONIX entirely?
• Engage community groups to ensure that potential categorization is
respectful, accurate, and collaborative
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16. Thank you!
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