GLAM ON THE NATIONAL STAGE
2019 Summit on the Value of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
Erica Mattson
AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. GUY BERTHIAUME, LIBRARIAN AND ARCHIVIST OF CANADA There has been some exciting work happening on the national stage over the last few years to try to galvanize the GLAM sector. Give me a brief overview of some of the major initiatives that have come forward? There have been two national summits so far. This year’s event will be the third - on May 13 we will hold an all-day event – we expect about 300 people to attend. Speakers include Nathalie Bondil, Director General and Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and Charles Eckman, Dean of Libraries at the University of Miami. Discussions will focus on the value of galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs), and the ways that technology can be used to build
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user interest. These discussions will provide a forum to initiate new partnerships between memory institutions, as well as beyond these organizations. Initiatives that we started three years ago are now coming to fruition. For example, we fundraised for a project with the Canadian Museums Association to conduct a study of the value of GLAM institutions –both their economic and social value. The company that did the study is Oxford Economics and they will present preliminary results at the summit in Montreal. We’ve also been working on a common narrative about the GLAM sector – we’ll share a first version of that in Montreal as well.
