GLAM GUIDE: A NEW COLUMN ABOUT ALL YOUR FAVOURITE CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS!

GLAM Guide | Evelyn Feldman

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This new column will explore relationships between GLAMs – Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums! GLAMs, according to wikipedia, are

"Cultural institutions that have access to knowledge as their mission." 

This is my favourite part of the wikipedia article, because it highlights how each type of institution is centered on a core mandate of access to (and preservation of) knowledge.

Convergence?

A lot of the discourse around GLAMs (some from members of our own faculty) surrounds an idea of "convergence." The idea (simplified greatly) is that the institutions used to be converged in the distant past (e.g. the Library of Alexandria, a museum, library, and records storage), and that there may be benefit in re-converging, in order to increase efficiency and serve users better.

A number of converged institutions exist, such as the National Library of New Zealand, and the Taylor Family Digital Library at the University of Calgary, both of which combine library, museum, and archival collections and functions. You may notice that in discussions of convergence, the idea of "library" often takes on a dominant role, while "gallery" often gets left out.

The topic of (G)LAM convergence has been covered by Musings in the past, in an excellent three-part series by Kara Isozaki and Maeghan Jerry that I highly recommend giving a read!

Conversations About Convergence Part I: Exhibitions in Libraries and Archives
Conversations About Convergence Part II: Hopping the Fence Between Lam Fields
Conversations About Convergence Part III: As "Herd" From LAM Professionals

And, past MMSt-student Molly McGowan worked on a GLAM project and wrote about it for Musings!

The National Library of New Zealand, a "converged" institution. Source.

Collaboration!

But what do we even mean by "convergence"? It is a nebulous word! Do we mean GLAMs working in very close collaboration? Or are we talking about GLAMs being co-located in the same building? Or, is it the complete melding of GLAMs' functions into one hybrid institution?

I think a "convergence" focus misses the point. GLAMs have grown into distinct entities for a reason, and each has its own unique mission and contribution to cultural heritage and information access. We should embrace these unique functions, contributions, and services to communities!

I would rather leave convergence behind and focus on collaboration–both a kind of conceptual collaboration (what can GLAMs learn from each others' scholarship and discourse?), and a physical collaboration (what can GLAMs actually do together?). 

I find it most productive to ask, what can GLAMs learn from each other and do together to augment each of their unique mandates?

A note on my own perspective.

My educational and experiential background are by far strongest in libraries and museums. When drawing from my own knowledge base, examples relating to these fields come most easily–although I will do my best to give archives and galleries their share of attention, too! And hopefully, the column will live on and someone with an archival or art background will contribute in the future.

I also owe a lot to Heather MacNeil's incredible course INF 2195: Libraries, Archives, and Museums: Intersections and Tensions, the course's excellent syllabus of readings, and the thought-provoking class discussion, which are all certainly informing my thinking now!

So much to talk about!

There are so many interesting and fun angles from which to look at GLAMs!

How have GLAMs become what they are today, growing in parallel but apart, into distinct institutions?

The ROM and the Halifax Central Library are modern-looking GLAMs of the future. How did we get from the Library of Alexandria (and a complexity of other origins) to this? ROM source. Halifax Library source.

Where are there tensions between these institutions? Are the GLAM fields all in complete harmony?

How do the sets of stereotypes we've formed around each institution compare, and what does this tell us about the way they are all perceived?

Indiana Jones is such a museum cliche
that it feels cliche to use it as one. Source.

Why I look forward to Fall weather pic.twitter.com/3TMzjyDPtn

— Librarian Problems (@librarianprblms) August 26, 2018

Archives often get placed less centrally in GLAM conversations (many museums and libraries have archives, but we don't often talk about archives having libraries or museums). What implications does this have for LAMs? Should there be an effort to "un-converge" archives and place them more centrally in our conversations?

How do collaborations between GLAMs actually work behind-the-scenes?

What exciting collaborations are going on right now?

Stay tuned for an exploration of some of these topics in future articles!