Andrea Belair
Head of Metadata Services and Strategies
As Head of Metadata Services and Strategies, Andrea provides leadership for metadata creation and practices across the general collections. In collaboration with the library team at Smith and within the Five College Consortium, she creates metadata and related policies that align with current best practices and institutional goals to enable cross-functional projects. In this role, Andrea will champion inclusive practices and promote diversity within metadata services and the broader library community.
Many of the professional organizations that Andrea has been involved with have been in the area of archives and special collections, such as the RBMS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Group, which released guidelines for harmful metadata statements. In the past, she served in both appointed and voluntary leadership roles within the Society of American Archives, New England Archivists, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC), and the Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services of New York, and she contributed to the peer reviewing and editorial process for several archival publications. In addition, she served as a grant reviewer for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Committees
Manager's Team; Five Colleges Metadata Managers Team, Authority Working Group, & Batch Loading Group
Select Presentations & Publications
Panel Facilitator, "The Environment of AI: Confronting the Social & Environmental Consequences of Artificial Intelligence," New England Archivists Annual Meeting, Springfield, MA, 2025.
Poster Session Co-presenter, Art Libraries of North America (ARLIS) Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL., 2022.
Belair, Andrea. "Building an Email Campaign to Highlight Underrepresented Voices." Archival Outlook (May/June 2021): 6-7.
Belair, Andrea. "Pillars and Walls: Celebrating the Contributions of Women in the Making of Union College." https://digitalcollections.union.edu/s/pillars_and_walls/page/introduction
Office Hours
Monday to Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.