Building GLAMour: Converging practice between Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum entities in New Zealand Memory Institutions

Abstract

The development of new technology has created a catalyst for escalating amounts of integrative practice between cultural heritage institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs). While discussion centres on collaborative or convergent practice in a digital milieu, there is minimal critical analysis of integrative models of operation in our physical GLAM environments. The increasing development of buildings designed to house collectively our galleries, libraries, archives and museums creates challenges and opportunities for the participating entities. Resource rationalisation, tourism ventures, community engagement and technological determinism are often the embedded drivers for the expansion of these new institutional forms. While the development of these institutions increases, there is a dearth of research considering the implications of these models on the participating entities. How do the gallery, library, archive and museum domains transcend institutional silos to build GLAMour?

Through a theoretical framework of organisational symbolism, this interdisciplinary research explores the agency afforded to socio-cultural constructs in challenging the epistemological distinctions drawn between GLAM entities in a physical operating environment. By examining the symbolic points of intersection and integration in integrated memory institutions, this thesis addresses how the participating entities negotiate knowledge across GLAM domain boundaries to build and maintain a 'culture of convergence'.

Data analysed from three New Zealand case studies shows how areas of intersection and integration manifest in the collections, identity, organisational infrastructure and institutional architecture of these models. These areas of intersection and integration recursively support and negate the development of a convergent GLAM culture. The depth of integration in the cases studied varied widely over the institutions‘ life cycle. Issues relating to differences in back of house functions, preservation management for individual collection formats, the use and appropriation of space, as well as entity worldviews also heavily influenced the development of a convergent culture.

This thesis argues that in building GLAMour there is a tipping point, which, when reached, falls beyond the advantages of cohesiveness and collective representation to a point where integrity and scholarship are impeded. Moreover, integration works best as a layered concept, with the levels and types of integration being dependent upon, and responsive to, each unique operating environment. In theorising the data drawn from the cases, maintaining the integrity of the individual GLAM paradigms whilst looking for opportunities to build integrative layers on top of core GLAM functions has emerged as a constructive approach to the development of future joined-up models of operation.

This thesis concludes that the theorised pathways towards convergence between the GLAM domains are not definitive, but rather are a fluid and dynamic process. This is a process that adapts over space/time and is recursively reflected in, and influenced by, the architecture, people, programming, services and unique integrative ethos present in individually integrated memory institutions.