News Room

Meeting of like minds as GLAM gets together in a leadership rol

27 March 2008

Collaboration and connections were the key themes running through the first Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums Sector (GLAMS) meeting for the 2008 year.

"Bringing together the heads of major national cultural institutions and professional associations in a leadership forum like this is a very exciting development for our sector," says Penny Carnaby, chair of the first GLAMS meeting and Chief Executive of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

The forum aims to provide a high level connected view from New Zealand's galleries, libraries, archives and museums across issues that matter to the sector and its customers.

The discussions centred on some of the big strategic questions for the sectors, as well as looking at possible collaborations in the immediate future. "We share a common interest across a lot of areas and we're keen to collaborate where it makes sense to do so," Ms Carnaby says.

Some of the areas identified by the group as having potential for collaboration included:

• Professional development and training, including leadership and succession planning, which are growing issues for GLAMS.
• Developing a ‘one voice' approach to relevant policy and legislation, strengthening the sector's leadership role.
• Shared services such as shared storage and ICT systems which can be very expensive for one organisation to fund.
• Funding and distribution of funds to maximise investment in the sector.
• Improved sustainability by taking a sector-wide approach.
• A shared approach to working with communities, from understanding their needs better (for example, through surveying) to supporting communities with protection and preservation needs.

Additionally, the group would be looking at iwi support and relations, governance and the potential to work more closely with their Australian counterparts over time.

"This sort of joined-up thinking is critical, not just for the benefits it delivers to GLAMS, but equally in delivering better value and more innovative services to our shared customers. These are very compelling reasons for GLAMS to work more closely together and we look forward to demonstrating the benefits as we meet more regularly," says Penny Carnaby.

The GLAMS group will meet every three months. The first action of the March meeting is to investigate a bringing together of community training and advice around conservation and preservation of community archives and taonga in both the physical and digital formats.

The GLAMS group includes representatives from LIANZA, Museums Aotearoa, Te Papa Tongarewa, the Archives & Records Association of New Zealand and the Records Management Association of Australasia, as well as Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand.

For further information please contact:

Alli Smith
Business Development Manager
LIANZA
alli@lianza.org.nz
04 473 5834