![Sample our Information Science journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5940/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Communication-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
Many within the information field have declared that libraries, archives and museums (LAMs) must collaborate or else face extinction. The convergence of these institutions marks the extreme of this movement, which is currently being driven by technological initiatives that seek to attract new, digitally engaged users. This paper presents some recent initiatives to bring these institutions together and explores the history of exchange between LAMs. Finally, a more pointed examination of archives in museums provides grounds to question the ability of technology to facilitate deep-rooted collaboration. This reading of the history of LAMs and their current challenges raises a concern that convergence is nothing more than a rebranding exercise, in which archives appear vulnerable to lose their defining characteristics.
Notes
1. Robert S Martin, ‘Intersecting Missions, Converging Practice’, RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, vol. 8, no. 1, 2007, p. 82.
2. Günter Waibel and Ricky Erway, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally: Library, Archives, and Museum Collaboration’, Museum Management and Curatorship, vol. 24, no. 4, December 2009, p. 324. See also, Diane Zorich, Günter Waibel and Ricky Erway, Beyond the Silos of the LAMs: Collaborations Among Libraries, Archives and Museums, OCLC Research, Dublin, 2008, available at <http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2008/2008-05.pdf>, accessed 8 April 2011.
3. Kenneth Soehner, ‘Out of the Ring and into the Future: The Power of Collaboration’, presentation at the RLG Members Forum Libraries, Archives and Museums – Three Ring Circus, One Big Show?, St. Paul, 12 July 2005.
4. Zorich et al., p. 5.
5. Katherine Timms, ‘New Partnerships for Old Siblings: The Development of Integrated Access Systems for the Holdings of Archives, Libraries, and Museums’, Archivaria, no. 68, Fall 2009, pp. 69, 91.
6. ibid., p. 68. Emphasis added.
7. ibid., p. 71.
8. ibid., p. 82.
9. ibid., p. 69.
10. Thomas Kirchhoff, Werner Schweibenz and Jorn Sieglerschmidt, ‘Archives, Libraries, and Museums and the Spell of Ubiquitous Knowledge’, Archival Science, no. 8, 2008, p. 252.
11. ibid., p. 255.
12. ibid., p. 256.
13. ibid., p. 252.
14. ibid., p. 257.
15. Warwick Cathro and Susan Collier, ‘Developing Trove: The Policy and Technical Challenges’, National Library of Australia, February 2010, p. 2, available at <http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/nlasp/article/view/1666/2025>, accessed 22 August 2012.
16. ibid., p. 2.
17. Warwick Cathro, ‘Smashing the Silos: Towards Convergence in Information Management and Resources’, presentation at the Information Orienteering Conference, Canberra, 5 April 2001, available at <http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/nlasp/article/viewArticle/1316/1602>, accessed 28 August 2012.
18. Cathro and Collier, p. 2.
19. ibid., p. 2.
20. ibid., p. 3.
21. ibid., p. 3. Trove is available at <http://trove.nla.gov.au/>, accessed 28 August 2012.
22. ibid., p. 11.
23. Lisa M Given and Lianne McTavish, ‘What’s Old is New Again: The Reconvergence of Libraries, Archives, and Museums in the Digital Age’, The Library Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 1, 2010, p. 8.
24. ibid., pp. 10–13.
25. ibid., p. 16.
26. Larry Amey, ‘When Libraries Made Headlines’, The Australian Library Journal, vol. 50, no. 3, 2001, available at <http://alia.org.au/publishing/alj/50.3/full.text/when.libraries.html>, accessed 29 August 2012.
27. A detailed analysis of the influence of the Munn-Pitt Survey and influence of the Carnegie Corporation on academic libraries can be found in Michael J Birkner, ‘“Not Yet Ready”: Australian University Libraries and Carnegie Corporation Philanthropy, 1935–1945’, Faculty Publications, Paper 3, 2010, available at <http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/histfac/3/>, accessed 29 August 2012.
28. Amey.
29. Given and McTavish, p. 17.
30. ibid., pp. 20–1.
31. ibid., p. 23.
32. iSchools Organisations, ‘Meet the iSchools’, available at <http://www.ischools.org/site/descriptions/>, accessed 28 August 2012. See also, the website of the School of Computer and Information Science, University of South Australia, available at <http://www.unisa.edu.au/IT-Engineering-and-the-Environment/Computer-and-Information-Science/>, accessed 28 August 2012; and the website of the Melbourne School of Information, University of Melbourne, available at <http://www.msi.unimelb.edu.au/>, accessed 28 August 2012.
33. Given and McTavish, p. 25.
34. Melbourne School of Information, University of Melbourne, ‘Graduate Coursework Study’, available at <http://www.msi.unimelb.edu.au/study/graduate/>, accessed 28 August 2012.
35. Given and McTavish, pp. 26–7.
36. ibid., p. 27.
37. Deborah Wythe, ‘New Technologies and the Convergence of Libraries, Archives, and Museums’, RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, vol. 8, no. 1, 2007, pp. 51–5.
38. ibid., p. 52.
39. ibid., pp. 53–4.
40. Bruce Ferguson, ‘Exhibition Rhetorics: Material Speech and Utter Sense’, in Reesa Greenberg, Bruce Ferguson and Sandy Nairne (eds), Thinking About Exhibitions, Routledge, London, 1996, p. 183.
41. Wythe, ‘New Technologies’, p. 55.
42. Deborah Wythe (ed.), Museum Archives: An Introduction, 2nd edn, Society of American Archivists, Chicago, 2004.
43. ibid., p. 9.
44. ibid., p. 43.
45. Gerald Beasley, ‘Curatorial Crossover: Building Library, Archives, and Museum Collections’, RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, vol. 8, no. 1, 2007, p. 24.
46. ibid., p. 24.
47. ibid., p. 20.
48. ibid., p. 23.
49. Matthew Jones, ‘Archives and Museums: Threat or Opportunity’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, vol. 18, no. 1, 1997, p. 32.
50. Sue Boaden and Carina Clement, ‘Beyond Co Location to Convergence: Designing and Managing New Model Library Spaces and Services to Reflect Trends in Convergence and Integration’, presentation at the IFLA Preconference Satellite, Libraries as Space and Place, Turin, 19 August 2009, p. 10, available at <http://www.ifla2009.it/online/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Final.Boaden.pdf>, accessed 28 August 2012.
51. Bruce Smith, ‘Archives in Museums’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 23, no. 1, May 1995, p. 39.
52. ibid., p. 43.
53. ibid.
54. ibid., p. 45.
55. Jones, p. 29.
56. See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Archivists Protest in Ottawa Over Federal Cuts’, 28 May 2012, available at <http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/05/28/archivists-protest.html>, accessed 9 July 2012.
57. Letter, Patricia Jackson to Hon. John Day, 30 May 2012, available at <http://www.archivists.org.au/icms_docs/125337_Letter_from_the_ASA_President_to_the_Minister_for_Culture_and_the_Arts_WA.pdf>, accessed 23 October 2012.
58. Jones, p. 35.
59. See Timms, p. 91; Kirchhoff et al., p. 252.
60. For a full description of the Collaboration Continuum, see Zorich et al., pp. 10–12. The model was subsequently summarised and republished in Waibel and Erway, pp. 325–6.
61. Zorich et al., p. 12.
62. Waibel and Erway, p. 334.
63. There are many other metadata harvesting initiatives operating worldwide under the guise of convergence. On a large scale, OAIster collects academically oriented digital resources from a wide variety of collections and makes 23 million records broadly available through WorldCat. See Online Computer Library Center, ‘The OAIster Database’, available at <http://www.oclc.org/oaister/>, accessed 17 September 2012. The strategy is also benefiting more targeted initiatives, such as the Sheet Music Consortium hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles, which is building an open collection of digitised sheet music, and DART-Europe E-theses Portal hosted by University College London, which provides access to European research theses through advanced searching. See Sheet Music Consortium, available at <http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/>, accessed 17 September 2012, and DART-Europe E-theses Portal, available at <http://www.dart-europe.eu/basic-search.php>, accessed 17 September 2012. Similarly, federated searching is being used by recently merged institutions to unify existing catalogues into a single search interface. LAC, for example, provides access to both its published and archival collections through an amalgamated search of the formerly distinct databases for bibliographic records and archival descriptions. See Timms, pp. 82–3; and the LAC’s search functions on its website, available at <http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html>, accessed 17 September 2012.
64. Zorich et al., p. 12.
65. ibid.
66. Waibel and Erway, p. 326.