Dear colleagues,
Descriptive Notes is pleased to share a new post focused on the challenges of describing technical drawings and audiovisual objects by Rebecca Gordon. You can find the blogpost here: https://saadescription.wordpress.com/2026/01/15/descriptive-challenges-with-technical-drawings-and-audiovisual-objects-in-related-collections/. This post uniquely bridges across both our Audiovisual Materials and Visual Materials Description series.
In "Descriptive Challenges with Technical Drawings and Audiovisual Objects in Related Collections," Rebecca discusses her experiences processing a variety of complex formats across the Ray Dolby papers and Ampex Corporation records, both at Stanford University's Silicon Valley Archives. She describes her descriptive approach for these related sets of materials, focusing particularly on Ray Dolby's technical description and her collaboration with electrical and audio engineers from Dolby Labs, as well as the audiovisual items that make up a significant portion of the Ampex Corporation records.
As we kick off a new year, Descriptive Notes is soliciting submissions for an upcoming series on AI and archival description. Our hope is to provide space for conversation and multiple perspectives on the topic of AI and description. With this in mind, we are looking for folks to contribute 200-300 words on the development and/or implementation of AI policy in your institution for an upcoming piece in Descriptive Notes. Is your leadership developing an AI policy? Are you and your colleagues working on incorporating AI into existing policy? What challenges are you facing? What success stories do you have? Contributors to this piece can be anonymous/anonymized if requested.
We also welcome 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? Descriptive Notes is looking for articles, case studies, and other posts related to the how, what, and why (or why not) of AI and description to share with our readership. Posts may consider themes such as: the 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 or interest in contributing to the policy post to saadescription@gmail.com.
You can read more on our submission guidelines here: https://saadescription.wordpress.com/guidelines/. We are also still 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
------------------------------
Betts Coup
Head of Archival Operations
Technical Services for Archives & Special Collections
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
------------------------------