Digitizing Small Museums (GLAMs) into Culture Commons by Local Communities (digGLAM) is short-term Aalto Media Factory (AMF) funded project at the Systems of Representation – Media Lab of Aalto ARTS – Aalto University Helsinki Finland. This Project is an attempt to help digitize the collections of small GLAMs using an Open Source autonomous scanning Robot initially developed by Project Gado – John Hopkins University Baltimore (see the technology here: Gado2) and now currently under development in the Media Lab Helsinki along with the Department of Computer Science – Aalto University. Currently we are conducting an Open Industrial Competition to design the outer casing and a portable deployment unit.
The primary aim of digGLAM is to help small galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) in Finland with a small staff and limited funds to digitize their collections with participation from their user communities. There are three elements to this: firstly, developing Thematic Open Days at the Museum that focus around relevant themes based around the Museum’s Collections. Secondly using Open Source softwares and robotic scanners to automate the processes, showcase the efforts of the Museum. Finally letting the Local Community of the Museum (Crowdsourcing) to help digitize and tag the thematic collections. The digitized material from these Theme Days will be directly fed into a Museum Archive connected to the National Archives that will be available under a Creative Commons License. The interface of this new Archive is currently also under development.
Project Team
Samir Bhowmik / Project Coordinator – Doctoral Researcher – Media Lab, Aalto ARTS
Lily Diaz / Head of Research – Media Lab & digGLAM Project, Aalto ARTS
Agustí Pellicer / Research Assistant – Aalto Science CSE
James Reilly / Research Fellow – Aalto Science CSE
Anna Virtanen / Research Assistant – Systems of Representation – Media Lab, Aalto ARTS
Antti Ylä-Jääski / Professor – Aalto Science CSE
Verna Kaipainen / Industrial Design – Department of Design, Aalto ARTS
Palash Mukhopadhyaya / User Interface Design – New Media, Aalto ARTS