The GLAM sector: what can we learn from Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums [TG1 GLAM]

This workshop is designed to share and celebrate the successes and diversity of four key cultural organisations and the lessons we can learn from each other, in terms of service relevance, modernisation, professional practices and audience engagement.

Programme:

1pm Arrival and registration

1.30pm Presentations:

Emily Chu & Mura Ghosh, Academic Librarians, History, Psychology & Social Science – Senate House Library, University of London: ‘Reflections on Recent Exhibitions in Senate House Library’

Drawing on experience from the The SHL exhibition programme and recent exhibitions, this presentation reflects on feedback, practical challenges and learning points. It highlights recurring challenges and emerging insights that some of the issues we are considering as we plan for the forthcoming exhibition on London Housing, Poverty and the Environment.

Gustavo Grandal Montero, Tate Library and Archive: ‘So you want to be an art librarian?’

Dr Hannah Ishmael, Kings College London: ‘Archives Online: The lure of the Internet’

Deborah Sutherland, V&A Research Institute, National Art Library and Archives: ‘Not just a beautiful space: engaging with Visitors and Readers’

Situated in the middle of a large national museum, and a popular Instagram subject, the National Art Library’s Outreach programme is intended to make it known that everyone is welcome to enjoy the collections, whether they simply drop in to hear about particular volumes or register to use the Library – albeit within the framework of a closed access reference library, open for service only three days a week. It is not just a beautiful space.

4pm Close

Speakers:

Emily Chu is currently undertaking a secondment as the Academic Librarian for History and US History at Senate House Library, University of London. Her work focuses on developing and managing the History collection, in addition to acting as a primary point of contact on the History subject in the library. Prior to her current role, she worked in the Customer Service team based in Special Collections at Senate House Library, while completing a MA in Library and Information Studies at UCL.

Mura Ghosh‘s experience as a librarian is extensive, with over thirty years in the higher education sector both in the UK and abroad. For over twenty years Mura has worked as an academic librarian at Senate House Library, the central research library of the University of London federation.

Mura’s main role encompasses developing collections through selection and acquisitions and building judiciously in areas of library strengths, as well as supporting researchers with a tailored programme of library training onsite and online. In line with the University of London’s mission to engage with the larger public in London and nationally, Mura organises displays and events to highlight library holdings for potential areas of new research.

Mura’s formative years as a librarian were spent at the Department of Special Collections, Princeton University, where she worked in the late 90s, whilst also attending her Masters in Library Science at Rutgers University.

Gustavo Grandal Montero is an art librarian, researcher and editor. He joined Tate as Library Collections and Engagement Manager in 2021 and was previously subject librarian and special collections curator at University of the Arts London. Trained as an art historian, his research interests span art documentation and publishing, particularly artists’ publishing, and the relations between experimental literary and visual arts from the 1950s to the 1990s, with a focus on Concrete poetry. He has contributed to a range of academic and professional journals, including Artist’s Book Yearbook, Print Quarterly and Blue Notebook, and monographs: Making new worlds: Li Yuan Chia & friends (Kettle’s Yard, 2023), Dom Sylvester Houédard (Ridinghouse, 2017), The handbook of art and design librarianship (Facet, 2017), Please come to the show (Occasional Papers, 2014), Notes from the Cosmic Typewriter (Occasional Papers, 2012); and he is Editor of the Art Libraries Journal (Cambridge University Press). Gustavo has curated several exhibitions, most recently ‘Document or artwork?’ at Tate Britain (2022) and ‘Astro-poems and Vertical Group Exercises: Concrete poetry at CSA’ at Chelsea Space, London (2018).

Hannah Ishmael is Lecturer in Digital Culture and Race here in the Department of Digital Humanities. Hannah was the Collections and Research Manager at Black Cultural Archives where she worked with Google to provide an array of content for their Arts and Culture platform amongst other projects. Hannah’s research interests revolve around engagement with ‘Critical Archival Studies’ and is particularly interested in the role of care and ethics within digital projects, alongside a broad interest in ‘ephemera’ and Black British history

Deborah Sutherland came late to the library profession, working briefly in the African Studies Library at the University of Cape Town, then in the booktrade for 10 years, before taking the plunge and earning an MSc in Library & Information Science. For the last 25 years she has worked at the V&A, in a variety of roles in the National Art Library, from Acquisitions to Reading Rooms Manager. 15 of those years Deborah was responsible for the care and storage of the NAL’s collections within a strategic framework of current accessibility and future availability. In that time she project-managed four major collection relocations, and one gallery and three store refurbishments. In 2018 she was seconded to the museum’s Decant from Blythe House to the new V&A East Storehouse in the Olympic Park. This has all amounted to planning and implementing moving more than a million volumes and 100k archives and objects, including the transfer of over 80k children’s books from South Kensington to Blythe House and then, five years later, to Storehouse. Deborah especially enjoys supporting, training and mentoring new professionals, apprentices and volunteers and researching, writing and presenting on retail and graphic design in the NAL collections.

Venue:

The British Library, Foyle Room

96 Euston Rd

London, NW1 2DB

Cost:
£50 for members
£100 for non-members

Electronic CPD attendance certificates can be provided on request. Please request via cpd25@london.ac.uk

Cancellations less than one week before the event will be charged a 50% cancellation fee. In the event of a ‘no-show’ on the day, the full fee will be charged.

To book a place, please use our online booking form. Remember to include a purchase order number if required for payment.