Announcements

Descriptive Notes is pleased to share a new post in our AI & Description Series, a perspective piece wherein the 81st SAA President, Brenda Gunn, discusses the development of the UVA Archival AI Protocol and its implications for descriptive practice in "AI Can't Take My Descriptive Expertise": https://saadescription.wordpress.com/2026/08/11/ai-cant-take-my-descriptive-expertise/

In the post, Brenda explores the process of developing the UVA protocol and the questions it raises that directly relate to archival descriptive practice such as "Does the tool's training data reflect outdated descriptive practices? Does it depend on minimal description as a baseline? Who bears the interpretive risk when the tool is wrong?" She discusses the ongoing thought processes of those responding to those questions at UVA, but also ends her post with a call for the field to engage together, to explore in conversation the issue of AI and its impacts on our work in the field, with our own archival expertise remaining at the fore. To see more, read the whole post, "AI Can't Take My Descriptive Expertise."

This post relates directly to several recently published posts from the AI & Descriptive Series:

• Anthony Cheney Guzmán's "The Double Erasure Problem published just last week;

• Elizabeth Lhost's  "Are the chatbots coming for our collections? Or, reflections on navigating AI for archival description and online access" published last month; 

• Camila Zorrilla-Tessler's "There is no AI in Archivist," published in May; and

• Owen King, Caroline Mango, Raananah Sarid-Segal, and Miranda Villesvik's "Outside the Black Box: AI Shedding Light for AV Cataloging," published back in April. 

Descriptive Notes continues to solicit posts for this current series on AI and archival description, continuing this conversation. As is demonstrated by these posts, we welcome a range of pieces and perspectives: case studies, editorial or perspective pieces, situated around questions such as: Are you using AI as a tool for archival description? If so, what specific work are you attempting/accomplishing with it? What have you found to be the benefits and challenges? If you've chosen not to use AI in your descriptive practice, what factors or concerns have influenced that decision, and what challenges or pressures are you encountering as a result? Posts might describe descriptive workflows or projects into which you've integrated generative AI, the challenges of implementing AI, guidelines or guardrails for using generative AI in description, how you've advocated for (or against) the use of AI in your descriptive practice … and more!

Submit your pitches to saadescription@gmail.com. You can read more on our submission guidelines here: https://saadescription.wordpress.com/guidelines/. 

We are also always interested in receiving submissions for any of our existing series, as well as any announcements or updates, conference dispatches, history and heritage month-related posts, as well as our longtime favorite finding aids pieces.

Best,

Betts Coup

Blog Editor, Descriptive Notes

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Betts Coup
Head of Archival Operations
Technical Services for Archives & Special Collections
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
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