Growing an international Cultural Heritage Labs community

‘Cultural Heritage Labs’ in galleries, libraries, archives and museums around the world help researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators and innovators to work on, experiment, incubate and develop their ideas of working with digital content through competitions, awards, projects, exhibitions and other engagement activities. They do this by providing services and infrastructure to enable, facilitate and give access to their data both openly online and onsite for research, inspiration and enjoyment. In September 2018, the British Library Labs team organised a ‘Building Library Labs’' international workshop. The event provided the opportunity for colleagues that are planning or already have digital experimental ‘Labs’ to share knowledge, experiences and lessons learned. The workshop, which attracted over 40 institutions from North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa, demonstrated a clear need and enthusiasm for establishing an international support network. Within 6 months, a second international workshop was organised at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen in March 2019. In total we have brought together some 120 participants and an even wider community of around 250 people online. Some have been sharing their experiences in setting, using and running innovation labs, but there was a sizeable group of attendees who are planning to set up such labs and need advice and support in how to do this. The aim of this short paper is to present the journey and development of the International Labs community and outline our future activities

Open a GLAM lab

Defining a GLAM Lab: A Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) Lab is a place for experimenting with digital collections and data. It is where researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators and the interested public can collaborate with an engaged group of partners to create new collections, tools, and services that will help transform the future ways in which knowledge and culture are disseminated. The exchanges and experimentation in a Lab are open, iterative and shared widely. This book describes why and how to open a GLAM Lab and encourages participation in a movement that can transform organisations and the communities they partner with. Building a GLAM Lab: Building a GLAM Lab involves defining its core values to guide future work, fostering a culture that is open, transparent, generous, collaborative, creative, inclusive, bold, ethical, accessible and encourages a mindset of exploration. The Lab should be grounded in user-centred and participatory design processes and its staff should be able to clearly communicate what the Lab is about. It's important to think big but start small and establish quick wins to get up and running. GLAM Lab teams: There are recommendations for the qualities and skills to look for in Labs teams, how to go about finding allies within and outside the institution, and ideas on how to create a nurturing environment for teams to thrive in. Labs teams have no optimal size or composition, and its team members can come from all walks of life. Teams need a healthy culture to ensure a well-functioning Lab which might be augmented intermittently by fellows, interns or researchers-inresidence. For a Lab to have lasting impact it must be integrated into the parent organisation and have the support of staff at all levels. User communities: GLAM Labs will need to engage and connect with potential users and partners. This means rethinking these relationships to help establish clear and targeted messages for specific communities. In turn, this enables Labs to adjust their tools, services and collections to establish deeper partnerships based on co-creation, and open and equal dialogue. Rethinking collections and Data: The book discusses the digital collections which are an integral part of Labs. It provides insights on how to share the collections as data, and how to identify, assess, describe, access, and reuse the collections. In addition, there is information about messy and curated data, digitisation, metadata, rights and preservation. Transformation: Experimentation is the critical core of the Lab's process. Insights about how to transform tools into operational services are demonstrated. It shows that experimentation can prepare the organisational culture and services for transformation. There is an examination of funding and the advantages and disadvantages of various models through discussion of the different mechanisms and options that an organisation can apply to Lab set-ups. Funding and Sustainability: We share insights on how to plan for a Lab's sustainability as well as a step-by-step guide for when an organisation is retiring or decommissioning a Lab. Labs have a pivotal role in the transformation of GLAMs and the book highlights the critical importance of Labs in changing the future of digital cultural heritage.Funded by UCL Qatar (Mmember of Qatar Foundation) and Qatar University Library. There has also been support from the British Library Labs, and the Library of Congress Labs

Australian immigration and migrant assimilation 1945 to 1960.

In 1947 Australia embarked on a large scale immigration program that resulted in the settlement of over 1 million migrants over the next 15 years. The grandiose nature of this program and its ideological underpinnings of migrant assimilation dominate this period of Australian immigration history. The orthodox perception of this often referred to but surprisingly under-researched policy is that it was a dogmatic drive for migrant assimilation into the existing Australian culture. How, then, does the nation come to accept these immigrants and transform itself into a celebrated multicultural state in the space of the next 30 years? This thesis contends that Australia’s postwar policy of migrant assimilation is more nuanced than this perception allows. If we accept that the ostensibly uncompromising rhetoric of assimilation defined the migrant experience, this will lead to a skewed understanding of what was actually transpiring at this crucial transitional moment in Australia’s immigration history. This thesis argues that the implications of postwar migrant assimilation policy cannot be understood without examining government and grass roots initiatives towards migrant settlement. By examining both government and community responses to the policy of assimilation, at the national and local level and through a German migrant case study, this thesis reveals the existence of a subtle but important social and administrative dialogue on the settlement needs of migrants. This thesis demonstrates that regardless of its initial conception or accompanying rhetoric, postwar assimilation fostered a growing national dialogue and exchange of information on the migrant situation. Coupled with the tireless work of many individual public servants, community bodies and Australian citizens, this dialogue established channels of communication and fostered reciprocal relationships that enhanced the provision of settlement services for migrants. This dialogue also sanctioned the negotiation, interpretation and implementation of policy at both the national and grass roots levels. The goals of this reciprocal process were more akin to achieving migrant ‘settlement’ rather than ‘assimilationist’ outcomes. Ultimately this thesis demonstrates that the relationships and processes engendered by the policy of assimilation inform our understanding of the period as the progenitor of Australian multiculturalism.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 201