Updated March 2024 by Rose Echeguren
The University of Florida Digital Collections and the Digital Library of the Caribbean serve the University of Florida, local communities, and global users. The Latin American and Caribbean Collections hold millions of pages in Spanish that are especially sought after by Spanish speaking users from many nations around the world. To better serve our diverse users and enhance accessibility, Digital Support Services has implemented Spanish-language metadata. During this process, challenges regarding standardization of Spanish-language authorities became evident. Therefore, a Bilingual (English/Spanish) Metadata Working Group was formed at George A. Smathers Libraries, dedicated to standardizing terminology and metadata workflows to ensure the discoverability of resources, particularly within digital collections where linkable subject authorities are crucial for an optimal user experience.
The establishment of the Bilingual (English/Spanish) Metadata Working Group marked a significant step toward standardizing the creation of Spanish-language metadata and addressing the need for inclusivity and representation in North American cataloging practices. Prior to the group’s formation, reliance on lcsh-es.org for assigning Spanish metadata posed issues, as the authority files aggregated in lcsh-es.org originate from Europe or the United States, and thus are not representative of materials in our collections, their creators, and their users. To remedy this, the Bilingual (English/Spanish) Metadata Working Group has established a workflow that prioritizes the utilization of Latin American authority files, thus ensuring a more inclusive approach to assigning Spanish metadata and enhancing access to materials published in Spanish.
The Pan-American Authorities (PANA) project, a bilingual English-Spanish subject headings list, was initiated in December 2020 by the Bilingual (English/Spanish) Metadata Working Group at George A. Smathers Libraries. In January 2022, the University of Texas at Austin joined as a collaborative partner. Pan-American Authorities (code: pana) is now an authorized subject heading source code recognized by the Library of Congress.
To access our list of terms, please visit the official PANA website.
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