Peter Botticelli, Martha R. Mahard, and Michèle V. Cloonan. Libraries, Archives, and Museums Today: Insights from the Field.

Abstract

For more than a decade, libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) have been discussing digital access to collections and digital asset management. Coordinating successful interfaces for users, who also may be internal to an organization, requires multiple areas of expertise: vision from administrators; content and context from archivists, librarians, and curators; and technical skills from catalogers, specialists in digital curation, and web developers. Rarely can effective systems be developed by just one of these specialties. It takes collaboration, resources, and navigation of the “languages” of each separate, but related, discipline. Practitioners in these fields know that working together for such projects can be challenging, despite similar goals of preserving and providing access to historical materials. In Libraries, Archives, and Museums Today: Insights from the Field, authors Peter Botticelli, Martha R. Mahard, and Michèle V. Cloonan present 14 case studies that document the current issues, successes, and failures related to collaboration around technology at a number of diverse cultural institutions, as well as overall challenges in the digital age.