Short report of the MW2009 Unconference session: Digital collaboration of Museums, Libraries and Archives

At one of the 'unconference groups' at MW2009 11 participants discussed the need for collaboration between museums, libraries and archives to achieve better digital services. Here is a short report of this session.

Participants:

• Elizabeth Bland, National Library of Medicine (USA)
• Ericka Chemko, Inuit Heritage Trust (CAN)
• Ian Edelman, Hampshire County Council's Recreation and Heritage department (UK)
• Iris Finkel, Pratt Institute (USA)
• Kajsa Hartig, Nordiska Museet (SWE)
• Mireille Kok, National Library of the Netherlands (NL)
• Niki Krause (USA)
• Marco de Niet, Digital Heritage Netherlands (NL)
• Marydee Ojala, Online magazine (USA)
• Carolyn Sheffield, University of Maryland (USA)
• Jason Webber, Museum of London (UK)

The group discusses the need for collaboration between museums, libraries and archives for setting up digital services. It is stated that this kind of collaboration is really needed, yet it is still not widespread. It is also observed that there may be a deeper cause here, as collaboration between ALM's in general is not common yet, even when they are part of the same parent organisation.

The group states that it is inevitable that an 'outside force' is needed to create this kind of collaboration. Digitisation is seen as an 'agents of change', because:

• ICT is a changing force in society as a whole
• it forces the institutions to have a much stronger user orientation
• many funding agencies are likely to invest more in innovation than in traditional ways of working.

Only a few really good examples of this kind of digital collaboration were mentioned. In these cases the shared interest is obvious. Some of the sites mentioned are Alaska's Digital Archives (http://vilda.alaska.edu/) and Sites of conscience (http://www.sitesofconscience.org/en/).

This leads to the question: what is this shared interest? What do archives, museums and libraries have in common? The group states that story telling is the common ground. You need different types of objects to tell a valid cultral or historical story. Creating context together is essential to create added value to collections of objects. This can be done by both the institutions and their users.

It is also discussed whether the average user of a museum can be compared to the average user of an archive or an library. Is he/she the same for all institutions? The group states that this may not be the case with senior citizens, as they were trained to understand the differences between these kinds of institutions, but for the internet generation, the distinction is not obvious at all.

A final question discussed: if the internet users do not make distinctions between museums, archives and libraries, is it to be expected that these types of institutions will merge in the future? The group believes that the distinction will still be valuable in the future, although it is discussed whether it is a sustainable model that the physical will be separated while the digital will be merged.

At the end of the session, the publication "Beyond the silos of the LAMs" was recommended for additional reading (http://www.oclc.org/programs/news/2008-09-26.htm). One of the main authors, Diane Zorich, was a keynote speaker at last year's Dutch national conference on digital heritage, where she discussed the results of this report. A video recording of her presentation is available at http://www.digitaalallemaal.nl/?cat=6 .

To continue the discussion after the MW2009 conference, a mailing list has been established for this group. Interested in participating? Check https://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/ALM-DIGI.html for details how to join this group.