GLAM is an

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for galleries,

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

s, and

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

s, and refers to

cultural institution A cultural institution or cultural organization is an organization within a culture/subculture that works for the Preservation (library and archive), preservation or promotion of culture. The term is especially used of public and charitable organiz ...

s with a mission to provide access to knowledge. GLAMs collect and maintain

cultural heritage Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...

materials in the

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefore ...

. As collecting institutions, GLAMs preserve and make accessible

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

s valuable for researchers. Versions of the acronym include GLAMR, which specifies

records management Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the information management, management of information in an organization throughout its records life-cycle, life cycle, from the time of ...

, and the earlier form LAM, which did not specify "galleries" (whether seen as a subset of museums, or else potentially confused with commercial establishments where art is bought and sold). Another form also is GLAMA, which specifies academia, or alternatively GLEAM ("Education").

History

As an abbreviation, LAM has been in use since the 1990s; it emerged as these institutions saw their missions overlapping, creating the need for a wider industry sector grouping. This became apparent as they placed their collections online—artworks, books, documents, and artifacts all effectively becoming "information resources." The work to get GLAM sector collections online is supported by GLAM Peak in Australia and the National Digital Forum in New Zealand. Proponents of greater collaborations argue that the present convergence is actually a return to traditional unity. These institutions share epistemological links dating from the "Museum" of Alexandria and continuing through the cabinets of curiosities gathered in early modern Europe. Over time as collections expanded, they became more specialized and their housing was separated according to the form of information and kinds of users. Furthermore, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, distinct professional societies and educational programs developed for each kind of institution. Open-GLAM (Galleries, Library, Archives, and Museums) is a term that has gained popularity since 2010 to describe an initiative, network and movement that supports exchange and collaboration between cultural institutions supporting

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

to their digitised collections. The GLAM-Wiki Initiative helps cultural institutions share their openly licensed resources with the world through collaborative projects with experienced

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

editors. Open-GLAM and

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

resources from the heritage sector are now frequently used in research, publishing, and programming, particularly in

Digital Humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

research and teaching.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Library, Archive and Museum Collaboration

OCLC OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...

Cultural heritage Industries (economics) Museology GLAM (culture and information)