Stephanie Luke, Metadata Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University Library has been awarded a $5,000 Strategic Growth Grant from the Society of American Archivists. Strategic Growth grants support projects that meet the mission and goals of the Foundation, as well as the strategic planning priorities of the Society of American Archivists. These include building resilient archival communities, fostering collaborative relationships, and supporting the full diversity of archivists, archives, and communities, and fostering collaborative relationships.

The funded project, “Improving the Maturity Model for Reparative Description,” is a collaboration between Luke and Sharon Mizota, a Metadata Consultant working with archives, museums, and media organizations to bring their metadata in line with their goals for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Luke and Mizota created a maturity model based on a research project of interviews with 30 librarians, archivists, and museum workers from 19 institutions. Five corporate, government, and community archives will work with Luke and Mizota to pilot the model and offer feedback on its practical application.

“This grant is important because it will help forward organizational evaluation for reparative description work in archives. A number of academic libraries and museums have already informed us that they are using the maturity model to assess their practices. Sharon and I hope that this additional research will result in greater applicability to a wider variety of institutions,” said Luke.