Workshop 6: Being GLAM

This workshop’s topic was the convergence of the cultural hubs of society. Libraries, archives, museums and galleries are in my mind preservative of social conscience, culture, and a time in society. To that end, they are similar. These institutions hold a mirror up to our society where other places (such as the media, or the government) might not. They encourage discussion and debate.

In recent years with increasing technology, a shift away from analogue archiving into digital collections, these institutions are changing, but their ideals are staying the same. Fifty years from now there will still exist these cultural hubs in some form. They will not be going away. What will be changing is simply people’s access and the types of cultural and arts-related activities we will be seeing from these institutions.

GoMA has already started this by having more interactive and involving art than the Queensland Art Gallery. The State Library has more use of their online sections than their book collections, but that doesn’t mean the latter is void. The online version of the collection is undoubtedly being used because of its accessibility. That’s fundamentally what people will use in seeing these cultural institutions. Convenience is the future.

There is a combining of collections and galleries across the cultural spectrum because we as a people are being drawn together by them. These cultural institutions bind us and show us ways of thinking that we wouldn’t normally see or hear. The visibility of them in the digital age is becoming more prominent too. An interesting book, artwork or artefact can spread across the internet far faster than the media ever could fifty years ago. Within an hour everyone sees if there is something controversial at GoMA or a book that causes debate, as opposed to the week-long process it used to take through the typical routes.

In essence, I see technological determinism as being the driving factor behind the convergence of these cultural hubs.