Ethical Description

UCLA Library strives to respect everyone who creates, uses and is represented in Library collections. How we describe Library resources directly impacts user discovery and access. The Library understands our past practices have led to biased and/or harmful descriptions. To ensure that the result of our work is inclusive, humanizing and anti-oppressive, we have adopted the following commitments to create and remediate description:

• We are mindful of the language we choose, using more inclusive and equitable descriptive approaches.

• We seek to affirm the voices and perspectives of people with marginalized identities.

• We participate in community-driven efforts to describe the materials we steward.

• We continue to assess the standards we follow as language and concepts evolve.

• We engage in critical reflection and commit to continual learning and growth.

UCLA Library welcomes your questions and invites your comments while we improve our descriptive practices. Please use our feedback form(opens in a new tab) to let us know about materials that would benefit from additional context, or could be more accurately described. Thank you.