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AMSTERDAM — The Rijksmuseum is in the process of removing language that could be considered offensive from digitized titles and descriptions of some 220,000 artworks in its collection. Words that Europeans once routinely used to describe other cultures or peoples, like “negro,” “Indian” or “dwarf” will be replaced with less racially charged terminology.

“The point is not to use names given by whites to others,” Martine Gosselink, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum, who initiated the project, said Thursday. For example, she said, “We Dutch are called kaas kops, or cheeseheads, sometimes, and we wouldn’t like it if we went to a museum in another country and saw descriptions of images of us as ‘kaas kop woman with kaas kop child,’ and that’s exactly the same as what’s happening here.”

Ms. Gosselink said the project had been in the preliminary stages for a few years, but it went into effect in earnest only in the past month. It was discussed Wednesday at a conference at the museum, and first reported by Het Parool, a local Amsterdam newspaper.

This is the first time a European museum has made such a concerted effort to change the titles and descriptions of its holdings, said Raphael Roig, senior programs officer and permanent secretary of the ethics committee of the International Council of Museums, a global museums association based in France.

“We’ve had complaints about specific objects or exhibitions being offensive, but to my knowledge, this is the first time we’re facing a debate with regards to the titles and the descriptions,” Mr. Roig said. “We are very supportive toward the Rijksmuseum’s decision.”

The project, which the museum calls the “Adjustment of Colonial Terminology,” involves all 12 curators in the Rijksmuseum’s history department, who are searching the online catalog of images to update the titles on objects they oversee.

The labels for the 8,000 artworks and objects currently on display were updated in time for the museum’s reopening in 2013 after a decade-long renovation. There are still some works whose titles are in dispute, however, such as the 1594 painting “The Bath of Bathsheba” by Cornelis van Haarlem, which is described as “exotic” because one of the two nude maids who are bathing Bathsheba is black.

The museum has 1.1 million objects in its collection, and about a quarter of them have been digitized. In the past month, Ms. Gosselink said, about 200 descriptions have been identified and altered. Others, like this image of Native American “Indians,” have yet to be updated.

“Our main concern is to get rid of the insulting descriptions online,” she said. “Until now we’ve found 132 descriptions with the word ‘negro’ in them, and it’s quite easy to change that. But there are other words like Hottentot — it’s a name given by Dutch people to the Khoi people in South Africa, and a Dutch word that means ‘stutterer.’ It’s very insulting, and it’s really important to change that as soon as possible.’’

She also cited “Mohammedan,’’ an archaic word for a Muslim often used by Westerners, as a term to be revised.

Now, she said, “we’re dealing with the more difficult cases,” including when a work’s creator used an offensive word in its title. The museum will also keep the original titles listed in its online database to provide historical context, Ms. Gosselink said.

The Rijksmuseum has already received unfavorable responses to the project since the Parool published its article, she said.

“Some people are angry with us,” she said. “They say ‘Why this change, the Rijksmuseum is trying to be so politically correct.’ But in the Netherlands alone, there are a million people deriving from colonial roots, from Suriname, from the Antilles, from Indonesia, and so on that basis alone it’s important to change this.”

Mr. Roig of the International Council of Museums said that changing the terminology would be difficult but that it was a step in the right direction. “The key is finding the balance between responding to the sensitivities of the represented communities and safeguarding of history,” he said. “It’s a very tricky balance, in my opinion.”