As knowledge institutions Libraries, Museums, Archives and Galleries (GLAMs) have to work together - our boundaries are becoming more and more blurred as we move forward into the digital age. Lorcan Dempsey has posted on an RLG report on collaboration in the sector (link to pdf) with some interesting case studies which is well worth a read.
Showing posts with label GLAM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GLAM. Show all posts
Monday, 29 September 2008
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Sharing Made Simple
I've just come back from a really interesting day at UW Newport on Web2.0 for Libraries, Museums and Archives facilitated by Brian Kelly of UKOLN. I was lucky enough to speak in the morning session (as a stand-in, admitedly) but I found the afternoon breakout sessions on the oportunities and barriers particularly interesting and it was a great chance to get at the key issues for GLAMs in Wales.
It made me reflect again on how useful the library.wales.org work really could be and that we do need to keep putting this message accross to libraries all over Wales. Not that we should try and compete with Wordpress, Blogger etc but just to say that "Ok, there's a space here for you - want to use it?"
It was nice to meet Andrew Eynon, who I've spoken to a few times by email/phone and whose blog is firmly in my feed reader. His 8 Library Quest sessions seem to be a great primer for anyone in Libraries who wants to get up to speed on Web2.0 quickly so take a look.
It's really great that we have these kind of centrally (CyMAL) funded sessions which really bring together people from different services.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Injecting some GLAMour into libraries
I've just come back from the 2008 Society of Archivists' Conference in York1 and it's made me think yet again about how artificial the boundary between cultural institutions has become.
I've spoken at the annual SOA event a few times and each time I've taken pains to say that I work in "a library, an archive, a museum and more..." to reflect the quantity and diversity of our collections.
As someone who came from outside the sector I have sometimes had difficulty differentiating between the archival and library functions (the best description I've heard thus far has been that a big library is "at the same time an artisan chocolatier and a high-volume sausage factory"!). Highly skilled staff can delicately tease the key themes and structures from a seemingly incomprehensible array of personal papers and diaries whilst others can pull in hundreds of catalogue records for legal deposit material through z39.50.
The role of Museums, Libraries and Archives seems to be merging ever closer - we already have some convergence at the policy level (at least in Wales and England) - and it's getting harder to determine collection policies as data stubbornly refuses to fit into our existing boxes.
Lorcan Dempsey adds Galleries to the list and calls them 'GLAM', which I have to say has a nice ring to it. In many ways we're all trying to be a bit more GLAMorous; improving access to our material and attracting the public to our resources, whether online or in person.
Convergence is, however, not the same as unity. We can learn from each other as organisations - that much is clear - but there are still some fundamental differences in terms of training, perspective and operation. True, archives are showing off their unique collections, libraries are leaning more towards interpretation and everyone is engaging with the visual medium of the web but there's still life in the old constructs yet.
As an example, Librarians view everything on the web as published, but a large proportion of this is unique material which fits into our traditional view of archival material - either way a lot of it is ephemeral. In the digital age we can all have a copy, so this shouldn't be a problem (remember, LOCKSS is a philosophy, not just software!) but we can't really afford to duplicate effort so the problem remains.
The challenge for those of us working in GLAMorous organisations is to find out what terms and activities best link in to the public psyche in an age of Google Books, self-archiving, free museums and Who Do You Think You Are? without compromising our core values as cultural organisations.
1 By the way, the irony of the all the SOA conference information disappearing from the website on the last day of the event isn't lost on me. This is a prime example of how a CMS can be anti-informational.
I've spoken at the annual SOA event a few times and each time I've taken pains to say that I work in "a library, an archive, a museum and more..." to reflect the quantity and diversity of our collections.
As someone who came from outside the sector I have sometimes had difficulty differentiating between the archival and library functions (the best description I've heard thus far has been that a big library is "at the same time an artisan chocolatier and a high-volume sausage factory"!). Highly skilled staff can delicately tease the key themes and structures from a seemingly incomprehensible array of personal papers and diaries whilst others can pull in hundreds of catalogue records for legal deposit material through z39.50.
The role of Museums, Libraries and Archives seems to be merging ever closer - we already have some convergence at the policy level (at least in Wales and England) - and it's getting harder to determine collection policies as data stubbornly refuses to fit into our existing boxes.
Lorcan Dempsey adds Galleries to the list and calls them 'GLAM', which I have to say has a nice ring to it. In many ways we're all trying to be a bit more GLAMorous; improving access to our material and attracting the public to our resources, whether online or in person.
Convergence is, however, not the same as unity. We can learn from each other as organisations - that much is clear - but there are still some fundamental differences in terms of training, perspective and operation. True, archives are showing off their unique collections, libraries are leaning more towards interpretation and everyone is engaging with the visual medium of the web but there's still life in the old constructs yet.
As an example, Librarians view everything on the web as published, but a large proportion of this is unique material which fits into our traditional view of archival material - either way a lot of it is ephemeral. In the digital age we can all have a copy, so this shouldn't be a problem (remember, LOCKSS is a philosophy, not just software!) but we can't really afford to duplicate effort so the problem remains.
The challenge for those of us working in GLAMorous organisations is to find out what terms and activities best link in to the public psyche in an age of Google Books, self-archiving, free museums and Who Do You Think You Are? without compromising our core values as cultural organisations.
1 By the way, the irony of the all the SOA conference information disappearing from the website on the last day of the event isn't lost on me. This is a prime example of how a CMS can be anti-informational.
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