News
DTES RESEARCH
ACCESS PORTAL
How we add items to the collection
Anita Fata
Former Co-op Student, UBC Library & UBC Learning Exchange
MLIS candidate, UBC iSchool
There are now more than 1100 items and counting in the Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal (DTES RAP). Each podcast, scholarly article, or annual report that you see in the portal first needs to be identified, described, and possibly archived in UBC’s open access digital repository, cIRcle. That’s where my role comes in.
Over the last year and half, I have been working part-time as the student librarian with the Making Research Accessible initiative (MRAi). Although I collaborate with staff at the UBC Learning Exchange and UBC Library’s Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC), I work most closely with Aleha McCauley, the community engagement librarian at IKBLC.
My work is to identify items and resources to add to the portal with the goal of making those items more accessible or easier to discover. What makes this work interesting is that the portal is free, easy to use, and focused on materials about Vancouver’s DTES. I contribute to the initiative by making materials accessible either through helping researchers and community members permanently archive their materials via a special digital collection in cIRcle, such as this Talking Radical Radio podcast, or by creating records for items already housed in cIRcle, or elsewhere on the web, such as this report about including seniors in mainstream spaces.
As a student librarian, I was surprised by the sheer amount of research conducted in, and about, the DTES. This portal was created in response to community groups that expressed concern with research projects that extracted information from people in the neighborhood and then produced findings that were unavailable to DTES community members. Community groups also highlighted a need to preserve community-generated materials. It’s been a privilege to make both research and community materials more accessible through the portal. Amongst the 163 items I’ve added, I’ve also worked with the MRAi to add new genres such as podcasts, infographics, and zines, and focused on adding items about under-represented topics such as Indigenous Peoples, Public Spaces and Youth and Young Adults.
Working with these items behind the scenes has allowed me to explore the real-world applications of metadata that I first learned about at the UBC iSchool. Metadata is, simply put, data about data. It includes things like an item’s date, author, and topic tags. Applying accurate and consistent metadata makes it easier for you to find items in the collection. What makes the DTES RAP unique is the opportunity to include metadata that might be left out of more traditional portals. With metadata, I get to give credit where credit is due. With the Shifting Focus: Snapshots of Resilience book, I’m able to use metadata to highlight all the contributors that worked on this project. Although the Collaborating Centre for Prison Health and Education are the creators of this book, it’s important to recognize all the people who worked on this project, and not just the researchers, but the photographers, knowledge-keeper, and counsellor.
Collaborating with such a dedicated team has been a great experience. I’ve learned a lot about the DTES, and the amazing materials produced there by community residents, local organizations, students, and researchers.
Anita Fata was the student librarian (through the iSchool Co-op Program) at the MRAi from January 2020 to April 2021. She is currently pursuing her Master of Library and Information Studies at UBC’s iSchool.
