Overview

Historically womens names in some collections hidden from historical record; one example of this can be found in some collections in the Alexander Architectural Archives. In 2022, a pilot program was run by Katie Pierce Meyer, Stephanie Tiedeken, Beth Dodd, and Nancy Sparrow to find unattributed female clients' names within architectural drawings and add them to their records (contributor and title field.) This work was conducted with students from the Intro to Metadata course taught by Dr. Albert Palacios, job title. The workflow below is adapted from these individuals' work as well as initial research by Devon Murphy, Metadata Analyst. The workflow is to be adaptable to any metadata schema.

Workflow

Identify what fields contain name data that you would like to change

• Track this information in spreadsheet. Common data points include contributors/creators, subject names, titles, and descriptions.

Identify name appellations/prefixes

• create list of all variations of names; some names may be in full form, some not
• you can use location and dates to triangulate

Verify and disambiguate individuals' names

• Can do this with name authorities if the person is well-known, or has a presence in name authorities
  • Getty Vocabularies ULAN
  • LCNAF
  • VIAF (good for international individuals)
  • Wikidata
• Can do this with Census records, city directories, or genealogical resources if person lesser known/not in name authorities
  • Portal to Texas History 
  • Heritage Quest Online Ancestry
• Review birth/death dates, occupations, and residences to ensure correct names
  • Good idea to record these in spreadsheet format

Make your changes!

• Can do this quickly within spreadsheets, OpenRefine, or regex