Digital Scholarship and Digital Cultural Heritage Collections Working Group

Experiment & Innovate: ‘Open A GLAM Lab’ Book Launched

Posted: 30-10-2019 Topics: Strategy

We are very happy to share the launch of the Open a GLAM Lab book: a freely-available publication which shares the experiences of 16 global ‘Labbers’ from across the globe.

It introduces readers to everything they need to know about setting up, maintaining and innovating a GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum) organisation through a Lab.

Three members of LIBER’s Digital Humanities and Digital Cultural Heritage Working Group — Sarah Ames (National Library of Scotland), Caleb Derven (Glucksman Library University of Limerick) and Lotte Wilms (KB National Library of the Netherlands) — were among the 16 ‘Labbers’ who came from across the globe to author the book.

They met colleagues from the UK, Australia, the US, Denmark, Austria, Qatar, Spain and Belgium between 23-27 September in Doha, Qatar to collaboratively write the book using the Book Sprints method.

Quote from Open a GLAM Lab

Cultural heritage organisations have historically provided access to and preserve cultural heritage. The shift towards the digital has presented new opportunities for experimentation and innovation. The fast pace of technological developments impacts society and culture worldwide. Some institutions may not be ready for this. This is the world of GLAM Labs. Labs and Lab-style work challenge the traditional approach and use new, existing and emerging technologies to make their collections available in innovative, engaging and unexpected ways. Labs experiment, collaborate, take risks, sometimes fail, and always push boundaries.
Open a GLAM Lab, p. 32

The GLAM Lab Community

The book was written on behalf of the International GLAM Lab Community, in which many LIBER libraries participate. Would you also like to get involved? Please see their website for more information.

Authors

The 16 authors of the book are:

Many thanks to the organisations that were able to sponsor this book sprint, UCL Qatar, Qatar University Library, The British Library and the Library of Congress.

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