Connecticut's Archives Online This is based on the statement published by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
CAO searches may return content that is harmful or offensive. CAO’s participants preserve and make available historical records to be searched and some of the materials can reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions or relate to violent or graphic episodes of historical significance.
CAO is committed to advocating for repairing collection descriptions outlined above and to advocating for standards and policies to prevent future harmful language in staff-generated descriptions.
Common elements found in archival descriptions are: racism, sexism, ableism, misogyny, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes. Many collections document historical events that involve violent death, medical procedures, crime, natural disasters, etc. and more.
Keep in mind that archivists may be reusing language of the collection creator which may provide important context that includes biases and prejudices. Archivists often use standardized terms which may be outdated, offensive, or insensitive.
If you feel a collection description in CAO contains language that is 1) Harmful and/or 2) and lacks any contextual pertinence to the interpretation of the material, please contact the repository who owns the material found in the access section of any CAO search hit, or use the Contact us form, and we will forward your message to that repository.