SPOTLIGHT: ALT TEXT INITIATIVE

In March 2021, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) called on its members to advocate across museum departments to create action plans for DEIA practices in collections work, including working across departments and institutions to catalogue artist identity respectfully and accurately. This call resonated with communications with our own audience base asking us to invest in increased equitable access to our collections. We have recognized that digital cataloguing and its related responsibilities play a critical role in our commitments to value-driven representation of our diverse and growing collection.

Maintaining the database requires the ongoing review of object records against ethical cataloguing best practices that are benchmarked in dialogue with peers. It also requires the documentation of new findings about artists and their works and specialized training of staff and students to make our research available online using standardized formats and nomenclature. Standards for the ethical cataloguing and digital accessibility of online art collections are rapidly changing, and we see an exciting opportunity to become a leader in the academic art museum space.

With a part-time Curatorial Associate now dedicated to Collections work, we have been able to launch cross-departmental partnerships, to embark on new ethical cataloguing projects, and to determine areas in need of more support. In Fall 2021, we launched our first multi-year collections information initiative: beginning to include “Alt Texts” for images of artworks in our public-facing collection database, content that is required to be compliant with Northwestern’s digital accessibility requirements. Alt texts are descriptive texts that are available on our collection website, providing an alternative for visitors who are blind or visually impaired. At our current capacity, after a year and a half of work, we have completed alt texts for 25% of The Block’s online collection.

–Melanie Garcia Sympson Curatorial Coordinator, Collections Information and Digital Interpretation