Hello and welcome to Dig It!

A newsletter featuring digital trends and practices from museums & cultural institutions.

Dig It! is a platform supporting cultural heritage professionals to navigate the digital landscape - together! In this newsletter, we are going to curate experiences, campaigns, tools, and conversations about digital taking place across platforms. Just as every GLAM institution is different, their takes on digital transformation differ - and we want to discuss the paths others took when figuring out their ways of reaching out to their audiences, opening up their collections, and simply transforming their organizations by digital means. Every two weeks, we are going to embark with you on a journey through the field of digital cultural heritage - join us in this conversation!

Girls in a Rowing Boat (Summer in the Archipelago). Albert Edelfelt, 1893. Finnish National Gallery, Public Domain.

Who are your travel guides in this newsletter endeavour?

We are Medhavi Gandhi and Larissa Borck - and we have never actually met in the physical realm. This is one of the most beautiful things the digital realm can do: Enabling conversations that might not have taken place without its support. But here we are, sharing the passion for truly engaging, audience-centred and mission-driven digital cultural heritage.

We are persuaded that GLAM institutions around the world are in the process of figuring out how digital media, channels and tools can help them to be relevant institutions for their audiences - now and in the future. However, many institutions could save a lot of time when we all would start learning from each others’ experiences and mistakes. So let’s start this conversation!

• Medhavi:  I am the Editor of ‘The Heritage Lab’ - a museum media platform focused on India’s museums. Some of you probably know me through Twitter; where I mostly talk about museums + digital; open access; Wikipedia art+feminism and more. I love taking people to museums - digitally or otherwise; OpenGLAM is my big dream for India and I’m constantly trying to find new ways to enable people to engage with cultural heritage rather than passively consume the content. 
  In the fall of 2019, I undertook a 3-month research in Germany supported by ICOM Deutschland and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin with the aim of creating a toolkit: The Embrace Digital Toolkit provides practical resources [guides, checklists, podcasts, case studies and more] for museums & museum professionals]. I am currently in the process of releasing each resource.

  

• Larissa: And I’m a digital heritage professional based in Europe. With a background in cultural anthropology and political science, I am always trying to take a holistic perspective on digital transformation in GLAM institutions - and ask a lot of questions: How do digital and analogue practices blend in cultural heritage institutions? How can you actually prioritize your audience in the media, channels and formats you create, on-site and online? How can you use your digitized collections in a way that is relevant to users? How do open licenses power your institution’s mission? And why is working together and learning from each other crucial in this field? Let’s get closer to answers to these questions together! If you’re curious about what I’m doing, have a look at my Twitter or LinkedIn profile – and check out “Open GLAM now!”, a webinar series I produced for institutions that want to take the next step in their open digital transformation. 

We are doing this together because this sector needs open conversations and discussions about digital practices. Hence, we two are going to use this newsletter to discuss - with each other and hopefully with you! You can always use the hashtag #GLAMsDigIt to discuss your ideas with us. See you soon!

What can you expect to happen when hitting the subscribe button?

Every two weeks, the Dig It! newsletter will start appearing in your mailbox - filled with updates on institutions, people and projects we have discovered that we think more people in the sector should pay attention to. It’s going to be everything from discussions about digital transformation and inspiring examples from social media campaigns to events, projects and activities in the sector.

What is different about Dig It! ?

Let’s be honest - there are already a lot of newsletters out there, fighting for your attention. However, the two of us make it special: With our very own perspectives and filter bubbles, we curate the mass of all things digital heritage for you. It’s easy to miss a project, an article or a trend you could have learned from and developed yourself with further - so let’s do this research together.