The Block Museum’s collection of more than 6,000 works is fully digitized and accessible through our eMuseum platform, but that doesn’t always mean it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Search tools rely on structured metadata—keywords that help surface an object when a user types in terms like “diaspora” or “activism.” Without consistent, descriptive language, even fully digitized objects can remain hidden from view.

That’s the motivation behind a cross-departmental effort to enrich our digital records with more meaningful, discoverable, and inclusive language. Led by Kirsten Lopez, Curatorial Coordinator for Collections Information and Digital Interpretation, this initiative is both a technical infrastructure project and a curatorial reflection—helping students, faculty, and visitors connect with artworks through the terms that matter most to them.

Laying the Foundation: Research Meets Infrastructure

“The big idea,” Lopez explains, “is to make the collection more usable as a research tool across Northwestern. Whether a student is writing a paper on colonialism in Latin America or a faculty member is preparing a lecture on Indigenous representation, we want them to find more—and better—results.”

Lopez began by reviewing how keywords had been used in existing acquisition justifications and catalog records, mapping those terms to controlled vocabularies like the Library of Congress Subject Headings and Getty vocabularies. Patterns emerged: some areas, like materials or medium, were well-covered. Others, like themes, locations, or cultural context, were inconsistent or missing entirely.

Drawing on student survey data from 2018–2024, the project prioritized four areas users most want to search by: location, style or movement, theme or subject, and medium. From there, Lopez focused first on geographic cross-references (GeoXrefs). Many artworks already contain place-based information—where artists lived, where works were made, what locations are depicted—but this data lives only in unsearchable text. Lopez converted it into structured, linked tags, making this content findable, consistent, and compatible with both museum and library platforms.

A More Thoughtful Approach to Cataloging

To strengthen new records going forward, Lopez also redesigned the acquisition justification keyword format. Instead of an open-ended field, curators now categorize keywords into four thematic buckets:

• People (artists, cultural groups, subjects depicted)
  
• Places (creation sites, depicted settings, artist life events)
  
• Objects (tools, materials, or depicted items)
  
• Concepts (formal strategies, ideologies, or movements)
  

This structure aligns with the hierarchies in established thesauri like Getty’s Art & Architecture Thesaurus, making it easier to search and easier for staff to apply consistently. But it also invites greater interpretive nuance.

While controlled vocabularies are invaluable for describing media and process, they often fall short when it comes to social or political context. “There are so many terms we couldn’t find,” Lopez notes. “Words like ‘feminism,’ ‘activism,’ or ‘nonbinary’ just aren’t there.” As a result, the project is also developing a local vocabulary: terms that reflect The Block’s specific collection strengths and values. The team is exploring ways to integrate open-access vocabularies like the Xwi7xwa Indigenous Thesaurus and Homosaurus, which foreground Indigenous and LGBTQ+ perspectives.

Expanding Access, Opening Doors

This summer and fall, Lopez and a student assistant are building out GeoXrefs across the collection. A curatorial working group is testing and refining the new keyword system, and additional training is planned for Fall 2025. Looking further ahead, this work sets the stage for Curricular Starter Packs—collections of artworks frequently requested by instructors, organized around interdisciplinary teaching themes like migration, portraiture, or identity.

For Lopez, whose background bridges literature, medieval studies, and digital humanities, the project is as much about access as accuracy. “As a researcher, I know how frustrating it is to miss something just because the right word wasn’t used,” she says. “You should be able to search broadly—‘diaspora,’ ‘color theory’—and get a meaningful result. That’s what a good database can do: it opens possibilities.”

By finding the right words, and creating space for new ones, this work is transforming how users connect with The Block’s collection. It’s quiet, detailed work happening behind the scenes, but it’s making the collection clearer and more welcoming for everyone.

For questions about eMuseum content, recent acquisitions, alt-text, and inclusive cataloguing, reach out to:

 Kirsten Lopez, PhD Curatorial Coordinator, Collections Information and Digital Interpretation
kirsten.lopez@northwestern.edu