Collaboration and Common Practice in LAMs

There is a great deal of crossover between libraries, archives, and museums, which is why the idea of the three types of institutions collaborating is not surprising. All three institutions deal with collections, collecting policies, cataloging, digitizing, and to some extent preserving the contents of their collections. When we broke into groups to do the “silo” exercise in class, we found that all three institutions had similar missions, values, and roles that they played within the community. We all agreed that there were differences between the three types of institutions, but as a whole, they had a great deal in common.

In a 2008 blog post on “Inherent Vice”, Richard Urban discusses the numerous definitions of the term “cultural heritage” (Urban 2008). The term is often used to describe libraries, archives, and museums, but not necessarily for the same reasons.  Urban suggests that we should use the term “cultural heritage institutions” as a collective noun for LAM institutions, and in our “silos” exercise, we each assumed the identity of one “cultural heritage silo”. To me, it seems like the term “cultural heritage” is more easily applied to archives and museums, and I think that a lot of people do not necessarily equate libraries with museums as closely as they could. Although there are many specialized libraries out there that fill a role similar to that of libraries and museums, the idea of a public library is often the first thing I think of when I think of libraries. Because public libraries deal with more recent materials, and with materials that are frequently circulated out, they are painted in a different light than museums and archives.

Museums and archives often find a common ground in organizations such as historical societies. Reuben Gold Thwaites discusses the scope of historical societies as, “a historical society, be it sectional, State, or local, should collect all manner of archaeological, anthropological, historical, and genealogical material bearing upon the particular territory which that society seeks to represent” (Thwaites 2008: 76). This type of material may range from manuscripts, to material objects, to oral histories. Thwaites wrote and presented this paper in 1905, and many of the ideas found within it are still relevant to the ways in which libraries, archives, and museums operate today. He points out that historical society collections are classified into libraries, museums, and portrait galleries, but these collections all operate together to form the larger institution of the historical society. Thwaites even ends his article by discussing ways in which historical societies might go about interesting the public in their collections, something that remains important in libraries today.

The internet plays an important role in collaboration between LAMs, and presenting these institutions to the public. I greatly enjoyed the short article, “The Collaboration Imperative”, which we were given on the first day of class (Bishoff 2004). In it, Liz Bishoff discusses the changing faces of libraries, archives, and museums due to the options being presented by the digital environment. Bishoff states that, “Collaboration makes it possible for every institution to capitalize on the professional traditions and expertise of all” (Bishoff 2004: 34) I like this statement because it seems to encompass a lot of different things that LAMs are trying to achieve. These institutions are all concerned with collecting information in various forms, including books, documents, and objects, and providing access to them for researchers, students, and the general public. The creation of digital repositories allows LAMs to cross-reference each other through a common interface. Thus allowing more users greater access to a wider variety of materials. We looked at a variety of these projects in our case studies for class, so I will not discuss those here.

The lack of cross-disciplinary standards is one of the reasons that LAMs have trouble with collaboration. Dealing with different collection types means that each repository sees different information as being important. Libraries tend to deal almost exclusively in book materials, so their standards all focus on catalog book materials. They use systems such as MARC, which do not allow for the flexibility that many object-based institutions need. While archives also deal with books to some extent, their documentation is usually done on the collections level, rarely on the item level. Museums often catalog their objects on the item level, but they need a more comprehensive system of documentation than most library-based standards allow. As a result, institutions have a difficult time sharing records between them.

One project that was somewhat successful in achieving some sort of collaboration between institutions was the BAM, a German portal that linked libraries, archives, and museums together (Kirchhoff 2008). The portal began by using Dublin Core as an internal scheme for organization, but a proprietary scheme eventually had to be developed in order to allow a higher level of indexing to occur. I believe that this is the way in which libraries, archives, and museums will need to be willing to work together to create these types of standards if collaboration is going to be successful in the future.

There are many other points of convergence within LAMs, but I have touched on some of the points that I believe to be significant. It is important to remember that despite having different mission statements, the main mission behind all of these institutions is to collect, preserve, and make available to the public, items that are considered to be relevant or significant to the community as a whole. Having the opportunity to connect these materials through digital sources is something that LAMs should be taking advantage of, despite the complications that may be presented through a lack of standards. There have been numerous success stories in that field, which should act as templates for future projects. LAMs have all experienced crossover and collaboration since they began, and I do not think that is something that is likely to end anytime soon.

References 

Bishoff, Liz. “The Collaboration Imperative”, Library Journal, January 2004, 34-35. 

Kirchhoff, T., W. Schweibenz, and J. Sieglerschmidt. “Archives, Libraries, Museums and the Spell of Ubiquitous Knowledge.” Archival Science 8, no. 4 (2008), 251-266.  

Thwaites, Reuben Gold. “State and Local Historical Societies.” In Museum Origins. Genoways and Andrei, editors. 2008. 73-78.  

Urban, Richard, “What is a Cultural Heritage Collection, Really?”, Inherent Vice (blog), October 21, 2008, http://www.inherentvice.net/?p=146. 

Digital Cultural Heritage Project Case Studies:

“The Online Archive of California”. The California Digital Library. 2009. http://www.oac.cdlib.org/

“Heritage West”. Colorado Digitization Project. http://heritagewest.coalliance.org/

“Digital Cultural Heritage Community”. University of Illinois. 2000. http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/dchc/