Overview

Due to 19th to mid-20th century naming conventions, womens' names are often subsumed in documentation under that of their spouse, if recorded at all. Examples of this practice can be seen in various architectural drawings records in the Alexander Architectural Archives (AAA).

In 2022, a pilot program was created by AAA staff 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 INF 385S Digital Libraries course taught by Albert Palacios, Latin American Studies Digital Scholarship Coordinator. The workflow below is adapted from these individuals' work as well as initial research by Devon Murphy, Metadata Analyst. The workflow is meant to be adaptable to any metadata schema.

Workflow

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

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

Identify name prefixes/patterns:

• Create a list of all name prefixes in your data. These could be variations on Mr./Mrs./Sra./Señora, etc. 

Verify and disambiguate individuals' names:

• Search name authorities if the person is well-known, or has a presence in name authorities.
  • Getty Vocabularies' ULAN
  • LCNAF
  • VIAF (useful for international terms/names)
  • Wikidata
• Search Census records, city directories, or genealogical resources if the person is 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.

Make your changes:

• Utilize tools like OpenRefine, regex, or Python to make global changes across datasets. 
• Ensure changes are tracked on original name prefixes spreadsheet.