I am Kelley Klor, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, a recent MLIS graduate from the University of Missouri, and a soon-to-be Ph.D. student at the University of Alabama. My interest in the RDAP conference was born out of the interest in ensuring best practices for data accessibility and, ultimately, data sovereignty. As a member of a Native American tribe and an early career archival professional, I am especially interested in Indigenous data sovereignty because of the historical erasure of Indigenous people, and the importance of data gathering and use in Indigenous communities.

I enjoyed the content of the Community-centered initiatives session. Specifically, I found the lightning talk, “The ‘I’ in FAIR: Developing a Variable Standards Finder for Researchers” by Heather Barnes and Sabrina McCutchan insightful. Similar to Barnes and McCutchan’s data needs of the HEAL project, Indigenous data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). However, in many Indigenous communities, data needs simply aren’t met because the community has little control over their own information. One example of data important to Indigenous communities is the data about boarding schools, which is often scattered among various repositories and inaccessible. Learning about variable standards in this presentation was thought-provoking because such standards could be extremely useful when they are culturally appropriate and applied to Indigenous data.

Beyond the sessions, I thought this conference was well-planned and offered great opportunities to network and forge meaningful connections. I enjoyed the conversations I had with my conference buddy, Danica, and our mentor, Nina. I also enjoyed the intentional social time, such as playing virtual Scattergories, which was a first for me.

I found the time spent attending the conference was valuable, and although I missed a few sessions that I wanted to attend due to work, I am excited to watch the recordings and continue learning more. Thank you for this opportunity and wonderful experience!