Statement of Values

Adopted by the Board on October 19, 2021

Digital Commonwealth (DC) is a non-profit collaborative organization, founded in 2006, created by the collaboration between the Boston Public Library and the Digital Public Library of America.

DC provides support for the creation, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage materials held by Massachusetts libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives. Access to knowledge and information is core to the purpose and structure of the Digital Commonwealth.  Digital Commonwealth seeks to recognize and acknowledge any historical, structural, and systemic injustice within its collections.  Digital Commonwealth is also committed to being proactive in national efforts to end the spread of misinformation.

Digital Commonwealth strives to provide an inclusive, welcoming, and respectful environment serving the information needs of all members of society.  The organization commits to the following values to achieve an equitable, accurate, diverse, and inclusive process.

We commit to the following values and process:

• To encourage and strive to foster community, collaboration, and knowledge sharing between cultural heritage institutions.

• DC acknowledges the historical legacy of systemic inequity in any and all power structures inherent in library, archives, and museum organizations relative to their collection development, cataloging and description, and other information management practices that limit access and understanding of materials. 

• DC aims to increase the diversity, depth, and breadth of digital collections shared by Massachusetts cultural heritage institutions, with an emphasis on increased representation of historically and presently marginalized groups, both in the collections and in conversations about how the collections can be used. We recognize that increasing visibility should only occur when it is desired. 

• To ensure that the mission, values, hiring practices, cultural impact, and economic impact of any vendors or consultants hired using membership dues, or other conference/workshop/event attendance fees align with DC values, processes, and fair and equitable labor practices.

• To assess and reevaluate these values routinely to make sure they are aligned with DC’s mission and scope of work.