Beyond the Silos of the LAMs - Library, Archive, Museum Collaboration

Beyond the Silos of the LAMs: Library, Archive and Museum

Collaboration Günter Waibel & Ricky ErwayOCLC Research

16 December 2009OCLC Global Council Webinar

Programs & Research Günter Waibel & Ricky Erway – Libraries, Archives, MuseumsOCLC Global Council – 16 December 2009

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Sheila CannellDirector, Library ServicesUniversity of Edinburgh

Why LAM matters to libraries…


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Sheila CannellDirector, Library ServicesUniversity of Edinburgh

Why LAM matters to libraries…

“We've looked after things that are common. Every library has the same copies of books, and actually in the networked digital age that is being

taken away from us because it's happening at a different level, it's not

happening at the level of the local library. I'm really quite convinced that what we have to do is to boost up the

whole area of what would be called the intellectual capital of the university,

which I think happens within our special collections, within our archives (both

those that are older and those that are being created now), and in our

museums. I'm really interested in how we reposition the traditional library

into that more general area. Probably looking after rare and unique objects, which can range from museum object right through to a piece of research

data is where the future is going to be.”


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RLG PartnershipAbout 130 partner institutions in North America,

Europe, the Middle East and in the Asia-Pacific region.

Libraries, archives, museums

Why collaboration matters to us

Story TimeStory Time

A short history of libraries, archives and museums

NYPL Digital Library. Rivington Branch, Story Hour: A Girl's Club Listening to a Story of Atlanta. Digital Image ID:1145780

First: One for All—Cabinets of CuriosityFirst: One for All—Cabinets of Curiosity

Less democratic • Less economic • More integrated

Then: One for Each—Libraries, Archives and MuseumsThen: One for Each—Libraries, Archives and Museums

More democratic • More economic • Less integrated

Now: One for All (Again)Now: One for All (Again)

Library + Archive + Museum = LAM

Most democratic • Most economic • Most integrated


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Anne Van CampDirector, Smithsonian Institution Archives& OCLC Americas Regional Council Delegate

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Anne Van CampDirector, Smithsonian Institution Archives& OCLC Americas Regional Council

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We are 19 museums, 9 research centers that are scattered across the world, we have 18 different archives, we have 1

library, but that library has 20 branches, and we have 1 zoo. So it's a rather

complicated place, and you can imagine the challenge we face in trying to bring all of

this disparate information together.

The question for us is: Why should we collaborate? I mean, everybody has got

their own collection information systems. We like to think that what’s driving it is the demand of our new audiences, the digital natives. They’re children who really think

that www means whatever, whenever, wherever.


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Princeton

Smithsonian

Victoria & Albert

U of Edinburgh Yale

OCLC Research LAM Workshops

Programs & Research Günter Waibel – Beyond the Silos of the LAMsLondon – 15 September 2009

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current collaborations

obstacles

a vision

actionable projects


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LAM Workshop @ Smithsonian InstitutionAnne Van Camp, Director, Smithsonian Institution Archives


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LAM Workshop @ Smithsonian InstitutionAnne Van Camp, Director, Smithsonian Institution ArchivesWe ultimately ended up roughly 23 people from across the institution,

but really good representation from all 3 sectors, the libraries, the archives and the museums. It was probably the first time that all those

people had been in the same room together ever. It was just a remarkable day for all of those people coming together and sharing all

the things that we're doing collaboratively, or we're not doing collaboratively, and identifying what the obstacles were.

At the end of the day, we did come up with two pretty good ideas: one was the development of a comprehensive digitization and access

program for our unencumbered photo collections. Now, photo collections live across the institution. As you can imagine, every single

one of these entities has a photo collection.

The second idea was to create an internal single point of access for all the collections. The reason we wanted to do it internally first was

because we were painfully aware that we were not sharing very well internally, and even if people wanted to do, let's say, and exhibit, let's

say on Abraham Lincoln, who knew where things about Abraham Lincoln live across the Smithsonian? It would take years to try to figure

that out.


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Outcome: SI on Flickr Commons


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Outcome: SI Collections Search Center


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Yale Workshop: Project


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“Federation of Collections”

UNIVERSITY COLLECTIONS

Special Collections

SC

Museums Support &

Development

Talbot RiceArt Gallery

University Archives

SC

EUCHMIHistoricMusical

Instruments

Digital Imaging

UnitSC

Conservation Digital Projects

& Innovation

Lothian Health

Services Archive

Fine Art Collection

Natural History

Collection

Cockburn Geological Museum

Anatomy Collection

School of Scottish Studies Archive

Polish School

of Medicine

CRC based

University of Edinburgh

slide courtesy of John Scally, UofE

Silos of the LAMs Report :

UoE Collaborative Areas

Exploration of a federated search model Enhancement of the acquisitions programme

slide courtesy of John Scally, UofE


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All LAM Workshop Projects

An investigation of social taggingExploration of federated search

Enhancement of the Acquisitions Program Federated search of all university image

resources Comprehensive photo digitization

Internal single point of access to all collections information

A large-scale digitization effort of treasures Innovation on the Web

“Federation of Collections”“One Store” for digital asset management


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The Collaboration Catalysts•Trust

•Change Agent

•Mooring

•Resources

•Flexibility

•External catalysts

•Vision

•Mandate

•Incentives


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Vision

An inspiring vision provides the context in which obstacles can be overcome

“[If you] come up with a really creative, innovative vision that is at the

intersection of these institutions and will help our mission, and you help

me frame it, I’m more than ready to…carry it forward.”


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Mandate

A mandate provides clarity about priorities and empowers those naturally inclined to

collaborate

“The vice-president of the university has called a task force together about

digital dissemination, so we're all getting this as a mandate…

Sustainability will become more possible because of the mandate…from someone far more powerful.”


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Incentive

Incentives ensure that staff have a tangible reason to engage in the hard work of collaboration

“We have spoken long about cross-

institutional collaboration. The reality has been though…that we are

measured against each other and then you do take

naturally a possessive attitude.”


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What’s in a word?

Collaboration


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Collaboration Continuum

additive transformative...


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Trend: Space

University of Calgary


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Trend: Space

State Libraries, Archives and Museums of Alaska


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Trend: CentralizationSmithsonian: Office of the Chief Information

Officer, Smithsonian

Yale: Office of Digital Asset Management and Infrastructure / Office of Digital Dissemination

Duke: Director of Digital Information Strategy

University of Edinburgh: Director of University Collections

University of Aberdeen: Head of Historic Collections

examples outside libraryexamples inside library


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“We work together because we share the same

interest”

Local

“Things work at scale because the

community shares the same values”

Global

“We work together because we have the same employer”

Group


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Trend: Geographically bounded aggregations


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Network Level: LAMs in the wild

What is the role of OCLC?

Education

Beyond the Silos of the LAMs - Library, Archive, Museum Collaboration