From Courtney (Blog 1)

Areas of common practice in LAMs (Libraries, Archives, and Museums) are difficult to produce. The need for language consistency between these three places is crucial if they are to create a common area for research. For example, the term ‘cataloging’ for libraries means creating description for the item where the same term means the classification of objects for museums. This inconsistency would prove difficult when trying to combine the artifacts and information into one resource. For reasons such as this, a need is created to produce a “common overarching international standard” that will encompass the information of the libraries, archives, and museums in question (Shepherd, p 19). According to Shepherd, the International Council on Archive’s Ad Hoc Commission on Archival Description has been trying since 1990 to create common standards for LAMs. They set up data value standards which was meant to control authority files, controlled vocabularies and other terms. Headings for authority records would have to be standardized to create accurate records.

            The archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, also understands the need for libraries, archives, and museums to work together in creating terms and vocabulary across disciplines. “We are all in the same business: protecting, collecting, and allowing the use of information,” Ferriero says. The importance of simplicity for the sake of the users cannot be overstated, and to do that these repositories must find common ground. “Users expect to be able to span the scope of knowledge in seconds” according to Ferriero, and we must accomplish this by first deciding how the common system is to describe itself. Many museum curators, according to Professor Holly Witchey of Johns Hopkins University, are not willing to accept the need for integration even though most users demand getting the information they want or need as quickly as possible. They do not want to change the way they operate by compromising with the systems used by archives and libraries. However, the time of LAM integration is nearly a necessity now to keep users interested, so these reluctant curators must find a way to work with the other systems.

The use of consistent language in a LAMs system does create a need for compromise between the three places. They must decide what terms work best for the users, and how to best relay the information they have in a cohesive manner. Though there is reluctance among many places and people who can’t imagine using a different system, most users wish to have a central place to locate their information quickly and easily, and in terms that they can understand.

References

Leddy, C. (2012, April 10). Linking libraries, museums, archives [Electronic version].

Harvard Gazette.

Shepherd, E., & Pringle, R. (2010, August 4). Mapping Descriptive Standards Across

Domains: A comparison of ISAD(G) and SPECTRUM. Journal of the Society of Archivists, 23(1), 17-34.