Collaboration, flexibility, skill-sharing: The future of museum and cultural heritage work in the age of digital transformation in Australia

Katrina Grant and Sean Minney

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic created huge challenges for the galleries, libraries, archives and museum (GLAM) sector as institutions were shut and travel and tourism became almost non-existent. Globally, cultural institutions large and small suddenly had to rely almost entirely on digital platforms to engage their missing audiences. Digital transformation was already an important part of the sector, though progress had been uneven across different organisations and in different countries. Since at least the mid-2000s, there has been a rapid increase in the mass digitisation of cultural collections, the introduction of social media as a tool for marketing and audience engagement, as well as digitally mediated user experiences of in-person exhibitions.¹ In some institutions, the arrival of COVID and lockdowns sped up an embrace of digital technologies that was already in progress; in others, new directions and new platforms were embraced.² However, the ‘digital pivot’ from 2020 also revealed huge gaps in capacity and funding for many institutions and made the digital divide and challenges of accessibility on the audience end more obvious. Digital mediums increased accessibility for some but reduced it for others.³

The research presented in this article brings new data to discussions about how digital transformation has directly affected the people who work in cultural institutions before, during and post the COVID lockdowns. We first conducted a survey in 2019 that focused on staff experiences of digital transformation in Australian cultural institutions. Our goal was to discover how curatorial and collections staff worked with technology professionals to increase the value and reach of those collections.⁴ The aim was to investigate the experience ‘on the ground’ for those creating these platforms and projects for digital engagement with art, culture and history, as we had observed that this had not received as much attention in comparison to how digital technology is changing experiences for audiences or the technical aspects of development and implementation. The arrival of COVID-19 delayed the publication of this first survey, but it gave us a subsequent opportunity to capture a second set of data in 2022 that could consider the changes brought about by the pandemic.

As discussed below, the second survey took a slightly different approach to address some gaps we observed from the first set of data, as well as in acknowledgement of the changes that had occurred in the sector since 2020. The data collected across both surveys clearly demonstrate that digital skills and literacy are now required across many roles, and that there is a need for new approaches to training, both in formal academic and professional settings and in informal communities of practice. Our analysis of the data alongside recent critical discussions of museum and cultural sector work reveals that leaders in the cultural sector and their partners in training and research at universities need to think creatively and collaboratively about what new skills are required. There is also a growing demand for new skills and digital literacy training to happen alongside a critical appraisal of how the sector can use technology to achieve its goals of ethical participation with diverse communities.⁵

Background

Earlier studies on the phenomenon of digital transformation and the rise of digital methodologies in humanities tended to define what it was or to debate these definitions.⁶ There was also a focus on reporting on specific projects and explaining the methodologies and outcomes from these. Studies on the digital GLAM sector also focused on project reporting, as well as identifying challenges and opportunities for the sector. We noted fewer studies that reported specifically on staff experience, training and development of expertise in rapidly changing technologies, such as that by Line Vestergaard Knudsen and Anne Rørbæk Olesen on collaboration between teams working in museum communication.⁷ This has begun to shift with the realisation that digital competency needs to be achieved across a range of roles at organisations. Reports on earlier digital project development have highlighted that successful work tended to be driven by individuals or teams with a unique set of skills and professional backgrounds and who were given institutional support (including special project funding) to be innovative and push boundaries.⁸ Despite the success of these projects, they did not necessarily lead to broader upskilling and collaboration in the sector.

A UK report from 2018 examined the extent of digital literacy in the sector and made recommendations about the best approaches for building this based on both practical needs and values.⁹ For example, Sophie Frost wrote in 2020 about the need for ‘digital courage’ as a more productive concept than ‘digital confidence’, and for museum staff to be ‘enabled to experiment and play with digital; to tell their own stories with it, and to plot their own paths’.¹⁰ This is an example of a shift in recent years from a focus on the ‘what’ to the ‘who’ in discussions of digital cultural research and engagement. Other studies, such as that by historians Lauren Pikó and André Brett, have highlighted how digital infrastructures in archives and libraries enable new types of accessibility and that history as a discipline needs to shift its view of what counts as ‘proper’ research methods.¹¹ Researchers based in Italy conducted a recent study that demonstrated that while museums understand the value and opportunities of digitisation and digital content, and there is evidence that visitors desire this type of content, staff feel that their skills are not keeping pace with the uptake of digital technology.¹² The podcast ‘People, Change, Museums’ produced by Sophie Frost during the period of COVID shutdowns of museums included a range of interviews with museum practitioners, many of whom highlighted that digital work and digital teams often sit ‘awkwardly’ in many organisations.¹³

The closure of many early experimental digital labs, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art MediaLab in the US, or the State Library of New South Wales DX Lab in Australia, were possibly symptoms of this ‘confusion’ and ‘awkward fit’.¹⁴ A study from 2019 by Mary Anne Kennan and Jessie Lymn on skills in GLAM observed that many institutions had relied on individuals or small teams with a specific, and uncommon, set of interdisciplinary skills across curatorial and collections expertise, technology development and public engagement—what has sometimes been described as a ‘unicorn’.¹⁵ Their study recommended that, instead, organisations should expand to include new roles with expertise in information management and digital tools, and that what was required was mutual understanding from both sides of the goals of museum work and a willingness to adapt and learn from experts with diverse skills and domain knowledge. In 2021, a study by the Knight Foundation in the US looked into how digital staff in museums could be best supported and cautioned against creating these ‘unicorn’ positions that combine heterogeneous skills that are not aligned with available resources.¹⁶ In other words, a digital strategy cannot rely on hiring a few highly skilled, creative, innovative and uniquely skilled practitioners but should be based on making the most of existing staff and skills and further developing these in accordance with the specific goals of that institution. This is backed up by a 2019 publication on digital practices in which Hannah Lewi discussed ‘communities of practice’ rather than ‘digital projects’ and observed that digital tools and methods are shifting the way work is done across the sector and across different departments and teams within institutions.¹⁷ A point common across this research, and frequently acknowledged in studies of organisational change more broadly, is that the pace is both fast and increasing, and that it has been difficult for our existing approaches to training and knowledge development to keep up.¹⁸

The impact of COVID-19 (more background)

In March 2020, the rising number of COVID-19 infections led to a steady closure of exhibitions and public-facing spaces of galleries, libraries, archives and museums. There was an immediate desire (from institutions and their audiences) for cultural institutions to switch to online engagement.¹⁹ The demand to ‘pivot’ to the digital revealed gaps in resources, funding, staff training and broader expertise in how best to engage audiences and users in the online space. The majority of institutions already had some level of online presence through websites and social media, and many had already been slowly or rapidly transitioning to online access to their collections. In the Australian context, there was a vast gulf between major institutions such as the world-leading Trove interface provided by the National Library of Australia for access to books, newspapers, maps, images and more, and the National Archives of Australia, which did not have the ability to provide seamless access via online-only methods.²⁰ Museums and galleries had been digitising their collections and, while these resources had become important for researchers across the spectrum (from academics to local historical societies), they were not necessarily designed to engage the broader public.²¹ Institutions faced the challenge of engaging audiences who were accustomed to a focus on exhibitions and being in physical proximity to objects and museum spaces.²²

The changes during the closures and since have revealed how the pandemic has shifted practices and, perhaps more importantly, attitudes towards digital projects and tools in the cultural sector. A 2023 TrendsWatch report from the America Alliance of Museums reported that, even three years after the pandemic, ‘globally 76 per cent of workers feel they are unequipped to operate in a digital-first world, and less than a third are actively involved in digital skills learning and training’.²³ A 2021 study on Italian museums and heritage sites observed that COVID-19 was not a catalyst for the use of ‘technologically ground-breaking tools’, but instead reinforced a reliance on commercial social media platforms.²⁴ It is unsurprising that, faced with a crisis, institutions would focus on tools that they had already set up and were comfortable with using. The TrendsWatch report did find that use of digital methods had advantages in reaching a broader audience, both geographically and demographically, though with the caveat that not all audiences have ready access to the digital technology or internet connections required to engage.²⁵ A US study looked at how the accessibility of digital platforms had an impact on the response of museum workers to current issues like the Black Lives Matter movement and found that access to a broader range of information and points of view made museum workers more conscious of the need for activism and solidarity.²⁶ This use of online engagement and communication to inform curatorial practices highlights how broader shifts in digital platforms can feed back into museum practices in ways that are not just focused on technical skills. In terms of institutional skills, the reliance on digital for several years has helped to demonstrate that in supporting and creating digitally literate staff institutions need an approach that is holistic, critical and creative and not just focused on information technology (IT) skills.²⁷ Seb Chan, in a speech to the ICOM Conference in 2022, described the need for leaders in the arts to build a range of competencies in regards to the use of digital technology and that this should include ‘fostering a digital imagination’.²⁸

Synopsis of the 2019 study and findings

The survey undertaken by the authors in 2019 examined the impact of digital transformation on Australian cultural institutions, from two different perspectives: curatorial staff and information technology staff employed in GLAM. It was conducted as two separate surveys targeted at the different professions and designed to capture their perceptions of the importance of their work to the institution, and the extent of collaboration or knowledge exchange between the two professions. At that point the survey of the literature (revisited and updated above) showed that there was relatively little information available on current staff capabilities, models of collaborative work and cross-skilling in the GLAM sector, and even less specifically on the Australian context.

The 2019 survey consisted of:

1. demographic data (i.e. age, gender, previous employment and educational background)
2. organisational data (i.e. length of employment, team size, work area, understanding of organisational mission or purpose, and perception of fit between work and mission)
3. perceptions of how staff experienced other professionals within the organisation
4. involvement with digitisation (and level if staff indicated that they undertook digitisation in the second survey only)
5. opportunity for further comment.

The surveys were filled out by 57 respondents, with a higher rate of participation for the one aimed at curatorial staff (41) v. the one for IT staff (26).²⁹

The key findings from the 2019 survey were grouped into the following categories: communication, collaboration, training, resourcing and access. Most respondents reported involvement with digital work and digitisation projects; although this was often flagged as ‘special project’ work, it was clear it involved a broad range of staff and volunteers.³⁰ The results also demonstrated an understanding of the necessity and urgency of developing digital skills, resources and infrastructures. A lack of resources, including time, was the main challenge identified by respondents. Both groups reported that there was some organisational support but noted the constraints on their resources and time that impacted on their work in the digital sphere. Around 50 per cent of both cohorts reported these as significant obstacles. The free comment response included observations that organisations were expecting digitisation and digital work to occur but had not provided the relevant resources, or that resources from external funding bodies were not sufficient. This aligned with what was being reported at the time as an ongoing issue in the sector.³¹

A key goal of the first survey was to discover whether curatorial and IT staff and teams had the opportunity to engage and collaborate with each other. About 50 per cent of both curatorial and IT staff indicated they worked a moderate amount with the other area.³² The results showed that there was a strong awareness across the separate professional cohorts of each other’s work; however, some comments suggested that sometimes curators did not maximise the assistance that IT could provide or that IT teams lacked understanding of how they could contribute to curatorial work. Curatorial and collections staff responses indicated that they recognised that IT teams were crucial to supporting a range of different projects. IT staff also observed a growing level of IT expertise in the curatorial and collections staff. Both groups reported that collaboration was encouraged or expected as part of their roles, but often there were limitations to crossing certain administrative and professional boundaries. We asked both groups if they understood how their ‘work aligned with the organisational mission’ and the responses showed that collections and curatorial staff were more likely to report that they did in comparison to the IT staff. This suggests that leadership in these institutions could do more to engage with IT and digital technology experts to support them to see how their work aligns with the goals of the institution.

In considering collaborative work and communication it is worth noting the demographic differences between the two groups. Overall, IT staff were significantly more likely to be male and were less likely to have postgraduate qualifications. Curatorial staff were mostly female, slightly older and had significantly higher levels of education. This showed that groups of staff have different experiences, backgrounds and knowledge within the sector. Another interesting result was that 74 per cent of IT staff reported that they had worked at the same organisation for more than five years whereas only 57 per cent of curatorial staff had done the same.

Access to technologies or tools and training to use them was another clear area of concern that emerged from the 2019 survey. Both cohorts strongly reported that they had opportunities to learn new skills in their roles; however, the open comments suggested that training was often lacking for digital tools. The curatorial and collections staff noted a lack of support for emerging technologies or use of open-source alternatives. Other comments identified the problem that the new tools being provided were not necessarily complementary to existing processes, which had to be changed to match the tool, or that otherwise useful new tools and platforms were difficult to use with existing organisational-wide software and content management systems. Overall, we concluded from the first survey that people who work within the GLAM sector have many challenges to meet in the face of digital transformation and they appear to be aware and motivated to embrace these changes. However, in Australia at least, they lack an overarching framework and the necessary resources to be as effective as they might be.³³

Digital transformation post-COVID: Discussion of the 2022 survey results

Due to the disruptions and impacts of COVID-19, both on the cultural sector and on academic publishing, we decided to distribute a new version of the survey in 2022 to update our findings. This was also an online survey focused on digital transformation in the GLAM sector. The survey asked some of the same questions, and included new questions designed to follow-up on themes from the 2019 survey to understand if COVID-19 had effected change due to the increased reliance on digital means of engagement. The survey comprised 31 multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Respondents were asked to provide a small number of comments and to indicate what future surveys could ask that this survey had not covered. The survey was delivered using Qualtrics and was designed to take around 15–25 minutes to complete. Survey data were analysed using Qualtrics in-built analysis tools and the free text responses were coded and analysed using spreadsheets. Participants were anonymous but could provide contact details if they wished to be contacted about any direct quotations given in the open-ended questions.

The survey was sent directly to a range of institutions from national and state-based to smaller regional museums and libraries. The authors also used their own networks to distribute it via professional organisations such as Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), Art Association of Australian and New Zealand and the Australian Museums and Galleries Association (AMAGA). Unlike the 2019 survey, we cast a wider net and invited responses from anyone working across a variety of roles in the sector. This was informed by our observations based on the 2019 data that organisations described their digital teams and roles in diverse ways. The survey received 98 responses from a variety of people working across various roles in different sized institutions. To explore what these data tell us about GLAM sector work in the age of digital transformation, we have grouped the data under three main topics: demographics and the profile of GLAM workers; roles, teams and staff perception of how their work is valued; and experiences of collaboration and opportunities for new skills acquisition.

Gender, disciplinary background and digital work in GLAM

As was the case in 2019, the survey provided a useful snapshot of the profile of people working in the GLAM sector and our results correlate with data presented in other studies and reports. The respondents were mainly women (76.14 per cent) and the age spread was even between our nominated groupings of 25–34, 35–44 and 45–54 (see Figure 1).³⁴ The finding that women comprise the majority of employees working in this sector is backed up by other surveys and studies including the recent gender equity action plan from the National Gallery of Australia and the Countess Report.³⁵ Other recent reporting on this in the Australian context tends to focus on artists and creative practitioners, not so much on people doing curatorial, collections and visitor engagement work, or it does not disaggregate gallery, library, archive or museum workers from those working across arts and entertainment more broadly.³⁶

Figure 1: Breakdown of gender of survey respondents.

Source: Authors’ research.

As we were interested in training and skills development in the sector we also asked about respondents’ levels of education and the disciplinary area of their post–secondary school studies. Respondents were asked to select all that applied so the count was higher than the number of respondents; the discrepancy between people recording Year 12 and postgraduate degrees (the latter was higher despite requiring the former) suggests that some respondents only picked their highest-level qualification. The results show that 53 respondents (i.e. more than half) reported obtaining a postgraduate qualification, with a further five reporting a doctorate. There were around 28 with an undergraduate degree, 16 reported a diploma and 10 reported a certification by a registered body (e.g. Australian Library and Information Association courses). This indicates that the sector has high levels of education. This was also shown in the 2019 survey.

The disciplinary fields of study, at a post-school level, were varied but largely focused within the humanities (see Figure 2). This was a free text response but the responses can be roughly grouped as follows: art history, theory and arts curatorship (6), museum studies (6), librarianship and information management (36), education or teaching (2), general humanities (history, cinema studies, archaeology, cultural studies) (10), STEM (environmental science, geography, osteology) (3), data management and digital curation (3), IT (4), communications (2), human resources (3) and entertainment industries (1). This was roughly as expected. It shows the breadth of backgrounds of people who move into work in the cultural sector. Only a handful of people (3) identified themselves as having specifically studied in fields such as data management or digital curation.

Figure 2: Breakdown of main field of study of survey respondents.

Source: Authors’ research.

The results from the survey raise an interesting question about the gendered nature of work in both GLAM and digital transformation. Several recent studies have reported on the way that technology is changing job roles in the GLAM sector.³⁷ However, we found that these tend not to discuss the gender divide as an issue, despite it being well recognised as a broader issue in the GLAM sector and in computer science, IT training and digital innovation. In the Australian context, the most recent Countess Report (2019) documented ‘76.31% women, 23.68% men across the sector as a whole (comparable at state gallery level)’.³⁸ The higher number of women in curatorial roles who are graduates from art school and curatorial degrees is often contrasted with the lower number of women in leadership roles in that sector. The dominance of men in the IT sector more broadly has likewise been noted. International studies have discussed the fact that men are much more likely than women to go into IT and computer science–focused degrees, and that men tend to dominate key industries in digital transformation: for example, ‘only 26% of the computing specialists in the Silicon Valley area were made up by women in 2013’.³⁹ A recent systematic review of gender differences in STEM education in Australia found that ‘the number of female graduates in some science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines is as low as 15%’.⁴⁰ However, to the best of our knowledge, this split within the GLAM sector has not been investigated in other studies on the sector. The National Gallery of Australia’s gender equity action plan 2021–26 observed that women ‘are well represented in positions of administration and cultural management … Yet, women and gender diverse people continue to be significantly underrepresented in positions of leadership in the cultural sector.’⁴¹ Our data from 2019 suggest they are also underrepresented in technical and IT roles; however, what is not entirely clear from our study is how they are represented in ‘digital roles’ or leadership of digital teams, as these are more difficult to define, but it is an area worth investigating in the future.

What does this mean for work in the GLAM sector? Unlike the broader IT sector, GLAM does not have a lack of women working in the field. The issue is where they are working. GLAM’s distinctive demographics provide an opportunity for this to be a strength in the development of digital platforms and for this sector to lead innovation in the use of emerging technologies that set it apart from the corporate and for-profit sectors. Recent studies examining the gendered approach to work with digital methods in the humanities suggest that this is worth confronting more directly as an issue for discussion by researchers and the broader industry. Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor, in a recent volume on Digital Practices in Museums, argued that there are definite gendered approaches to archival work, observing that ‘feminist ethics framework posits interlacing and ongoing relationships of mutual obligation that are dependent on culture and context’.⁴² In an episode of the podcast project by Sophie Frost, mentioned above, the emotional labour aspect of digital work was discussed, and it was suggested that the profession-specific expertise of people in museum roles (of all genders) means that they think critically about how digital tools and platforms can support and nurture communities rather than just extract profit from users.⁴³

Further, looking closely at the demographic data encourages us to consider how our current approach to education and training for students in humanities disciplines (who make up the bulk of GLAM employees surveyed) is preparing them to do creative and critical work with digital technologies in that sector. The Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency reports that ‘women dominate … [in areas such as] Creative Arts and Society and Culture and men dominate in areas such as Information Technology and Engineering Related Technologies’.⁴⁴ Often, the emphasis on diversifying fields like digital technology and IT is placed on getting more women into relevant courses like computer science. However, for specialised humanities fields like history, archival studies, and cultural heritage and museums studies (that are typically dominated by women already) the focus should be on how to bring relevant skills training and knowledge development into those programs. There is scope for further research to understand the role that this demographic diversity can play in digital transformation. A useful avenue of further research would be to look at the leadership of digital teams and projects within the sector, and understand the role that gender diversity might play in how this work is approached. This would involve looking, and engaging, beyond the binary of roles currently dominated by men or women, and considering further diversity along the lines of cultural background and class, and drawing on Indigenous knowledge and models of engagement.

Roles, teams and staff perceptions

Most respondents (72 per cent) were from state, national or local government institutions, 9 per cent were from universities and the rest were from not-for-profit or private institutions. Over half had been at their current institution for three years or more, with over 40 per cent reporting more than five years. Over 70 per cent reported having worked at other cultural institutions. The respondents represented a range of work areas and roles (see Figure 3). The largest number of people reported working in visitor experience followed by digital teams, collections management and development, education and outreach, and collections; smaller numbers came from IT, curatorial, marketing and media, events, governance and specialist research, including provenance and conservation. The ‘other’ section included people who self-described their roles as librarian, metadata expert, Indigenous liaison, archivist, retail, public and academic liaison, and publishing. As participation in the survey was voluntary, it is possible that participants with a particular interest or focus on digital work were more likely to complete the survey. We also noted in our analysis of the data, and in response to some of the participants’ comments, that our survey had not captured volunteers in the sector. Knowing the key role that volunteers play in smaller museums and collections, especially in regional areas, this would be a useful focus for future research.

As expected, most people reported working in teams of 2–3 (19.75 per cent), 4–7 (33.33 per cent), 7–12 (27.16 per cent) and more than 12 (14.81 per cent), and this was quite evenly split over different types of jobs and different sized institutions. Only four people reported working entirely on their own. Even following COVID lockdowns, in 2022, most people reported working only on site at the institution or in other offices, including collections stores. Four people reported remote work only; another 14 had a hybrid arrangement. Of these, several were based in IT, digital and marketing. Most respondents (over 90 per cent) reported that they were working ‘with people with diverse skills or across multi-discipline or hybrid team structures’. Again, this was split across most work areas but with noticeably higher levels of collaborative work in marketing, events, digital teams, audiovisual production and exhibition design.

Figure 3: Main work area of survey respondents.

Source: Authors’ research.

This aligns with observations from recent studies that, although staff roles that require expertise in digital technology, or ‘technologists’, are now common in museums, such roles are not consistently resourced and are situated in different areas in different institutions.⁴⁵ The tendency to work in smaller teams may mean that there is limited capacity to undertake new work or training. A recent study by Asti Sherring on the need for a reassessment of traditional roles in art museums in Australasia with the advent of time based art found that existing institutional expectations and policies can be a barrier to the development of new practices, even where there is an urgent need for them, and that staff perceived a tendency for siloed approaches and miscommunication.⁴⁶ This experience likely translates to experiences in other GLAM sector institutions more broadly. The solutions identified by Sherring may also scale to other contexts. These include dedicated pilot projects and the deliberate development of cross-institutional teams to work on them, resulting in the development of new work practices that could spread to other departments. A similar approach was proposed by the collective that developed the Open a GLAM Lab book in 2019; they argued that labs could take risks and do the experimentation that was harder in other areas.⁴⁷ Similar experiences were reported by Seb Chan and Aaron Cope following the project to transform the use of technology and media at the Cooper Hewitt Museum.⁴⁸

Perception of the importance of work with digital technologies, collaboration and new skills acquisition

The survey’s final set of questions focused on digital work, the acquisition of new skills connected with this type of work and opportunities for collaboration. As the survey targeted a broad cross-section of GLAM workers, rather than just specifically those in digital teams or in IT, we asked about people’s perception of the importance of collections and exhibition programs alongside digital infrastructure and digital projects. This approach was intended to address the perceived tension between the digital experience versus in-person engagement with exhibitions and collections.⁴⁹ We also asked people for their perception of how their work aligned with the broader aims and mission of the organisation. The vast majority (over 90 per cent) indicated that they ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’ understood how their roles aligned with the organisation’s ‘main aims, goals or purpose’ and, similarly, most (over 80 per cent) felt they also understood how the work of other employees aligned with these same goals. Overall, most people felt their work was ‘extremely’ (26.25 per cent) or ‘very’ (50 per cent) important to the organisation, with only 10 per cent reporting that they perceived their work as only ‘slightly’ important, though this was highest for those working in IT and non-existent for areas like curatorial, exhibitions or collections. Overall, respondents largely agreed that both collections and exhibitions programs and digital infrastructure and projects were of almost equal importance to the work they did at their institution. We also asked how people perceived the institutional importance of different teams and staff across curatorial, digital and engagement, and IT. Again, most respondents (over 80 per cent) indicated that these areas were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important to the organisation. This sample suggests that many across the sector have largely accepted the importance, or perhaps inevitability, of digital transformation.

We argue that these perceptions are important because many of the fundamental questions about why an organisation exists and what its purpose is should be central to work using digital platforms and tools, from small scale digital interventions in exhibitions to broader institutional infrastructure. Linking digital projects and the use of digital tools in GLAM work to institutional and sector goals, values and missions is important in the design and development of digital products and it is also important in explaining the rationale for maintenance (or not) of existing ones. An example of this are the ongoing issues with access for researchers, and the public, to the collections of the National Archives of Australia. The Tune Review in 2020 found that the archive had significant digital skill shortages in its staffing, in part a result of older models of working not being updated.⁵⁰ Another example is the National Library of Australia’s digital platform Trove, the value of which is recognised by the broader community, researchers and domain experts, but has faced repeated funding crises over the past decade.⁵¹ Both issues could be read as examples of digital infrastructure still being regarded as an ‘extra’ offering separate from the core mission.⁵²

According to our data, around 23 per cent of respondents reported using digital tools at least weekly as a key focus of their role. A further 34 per cent said they used these weekly, while 25 per cent reported using them monthly or a few times a year. Only 8 per cent said they never used them and 9 per cent reported that such work was usually outsourced. Although the numbers of people in some roles were too low to draw conclusions about which areas use these tools most, it is worth noting that well over 50 per cent of visitor experience workers indicated that they used these tools all the time or at least weekly, as did collections management and development staff. We followed up by asking about how this had changed since 2020 in the wake of COVID lockdowns. Almost 40 per cent reported that digital engagement for remote and offsite audiences had increased and was still a major focus, another 25 per cent reported that it had initially increased but that it had now dropped. Just over 10 per cent reported it had only changed a small amount. This shift appears to be consistent across the sector, though it was noticeable that those institutions run by local government and not-for-profit organisations were more likely to report that the use of digital engagement had dropped off again after COVID. This reinforces our observation that work with digital platforms, tools and technologies has now become a requirement of roles across GLAM organisations, but that skills and capacity are not evenly distributed.

Figure 4: Responses to question: ‘Are you expected to work with new digital tools and technologies as part of your role?’

Source: Authors’ research.

The data from the 2019 survey suggested that GLAM employees were using both formal and informal means to gain new skills or to set up collaborative networks to engage with new digital technologies and methods. In 2022 we asked about opportunities to gain new skills using digital technology. Around 40 per cent reported they had had opportunities in the workplace to develop new skills either as part of their role or ‘relatively often’. A further 40 per cent reported that they ‘sometimes’ had such opportunities, but that it depended on their current projects. Around 5 per cent said they never did but would like such opportunities. This suggests that digital skills are becoming part of on-the-job training for a broad range of job roles in GLAM. We also asked about external training and over 75 per cent reported some training, ranging from smaller number with formal qualifications (degrees and diplomas), to short courses and training from Australian-based GLAM organisations such as AMAGA, ALIA or GLAM Peak. Around 40 per cent reported they were self-training in their own time and almost 20 per cent indicated that they would like the opportunity for this type of training. Combined with the data from the 2019 survey and our background research, this suggests that many staff are sharing knowledge and training within their own teams or communities of practice. We asked about this informal work of advice, guidance or support to use digital tools and technology. About 15 per cent reported this was a key part of their role. A further 56 per cent indicated that it was not part of their job, but they did it anyway.

It is interesting to consider this tendency to continue to educate and self-teach in line with the reported levels of qualifications. The prevalence of postgraduate, including PhD-level qualifications, could be read as a workforce that is ‘over-qualified’, particularly in regard to the low levels of pay in this sector.⁵³ However, it also demonstrates that the workforce is well trained in research and thinking critically about methods and approaches and adept at learning new skills. It is a workforce that values education and expanding knowledge, even when the sector may not reciprocate with remuneration that values the high-level of qualifications. Studies cited above on changing roles by Sherring, Pett and the ‘Open a GLAM Lab’ team all point to a willingness and an interest to engage with new practices that are still often in tension with institutional expectations. Pett and Besser note that the rate of change and demand (from audiences, researchers, management and funders) for digital access and engagement will not diminish.⁵⁴ This means that staff in these institutions should be equipped to manage change in relation to digital technology across a variety of roles. This requires more than just skills using specific software or collection management systems; it requires a broader digital literacy and critical engagement with changes and issues in the digital world. Financial issues identified in reports on the barriers to digital uptake can be addressed to some extent by creating skills and communities of practice within the existing museum staff—outsourcing is even more expensive.⁵⁵ If staff have expertise and are given some freedom to innovate, they can assess and evaluate cheaper approaches, find lower cost software, and adjust outcomes to fit within budgets while meeting audience needs and museum missions.

Conclusion

It is 10 years since Ross Parry proposed the ‘postdigital museum’ and suggested that it was time to ‘acknowledge the extent of normative digital media in the museum’.⁵⁶ The disruptions of COVID underlined the salience of this observation, as many institutions and their visitor base rapidly shifted to digitally mediated engagement in a way that would have been unimaginable even a decade earlier. The complete shutdown of physical museums accelerated the acceptance of digital tools and platforms in the GLAM sector and prompted innovation that might not otherwise have happened. COVID arrived at the same time as the demographics of staff in the sector were changing. In 2020, Keir Winesmith and Susan Anderson noted that those people who were younger innovators in the tech and museum sector in the 2000s were now moving into executive roles.⁵⁷ Despite this, tensions between the perceived importance of digital projects and tools and actual support for working with them are still being identified by staff. Pett’s study, published in 2022, makes the argument that people working in management often still need to shift their mindset to be able to better embrace the creative and critical use of technology in a way that engages with the public and is also manageable in terms of both financial cost and time.⁵⁸ Our surveys indicate broad acceptance of the idea that the use of digital technology is now ubiquitous and that the sector has moved on from debates that pit ‘real-life’ experiences against the digital or that regard the digital as an added extra. Many large institutions have digital engagement or digital transformation plans; however, these tend not to make explicit links between their goals to increase digital engagement or embrace digital innovation and the need to attract and upskill staff.⁵⁹ In part this is because these are high-level documents, focused on what the museum will give back to the public rather than internal issues about staffing and training. Nonetheless, new practices, skills and critical debates are needed within institutions to enable this work to be done in a productive way. Further, universities need to consider whether they are providing students with the necessary skills and critical frameworks to be able to work confidently and critically in the digital age.

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1. 1 Ross Parry, ‘The End of the Beginning’, Museum Worlds 1, no. 1 (July 2013): 24–39, doi.org/10.3167/armw.2013.010103.

2. 2 Chiara Zuanni, ‘Mapping Museum Digital Initiatives during COVID-19’, Europeana Pro (blog), 4 August 2020, pro.europeana.eu/post/mapping-museum-digital-initiatives-during-covid-19.

3. 3 Lukas Noehrer, Abigail Gilmore, Caroline Jay and Yo Yehudi, ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Data Practices in Museums and Art Galleries in the UK and the US’, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8, no. 1 (October 2021): 1–10, doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00921-8.

4. 4 The 2019 survey was conducted as part of Sean Minney’s MA thesis in digital humanities and public culture at The Australian National University, ‘Digital Transformation in the Australian GLAM Sector: How Do Different Professionals Work Together as Their Organisation Is Transformed’. Dr Katrina Grant supervised this thesis. Key findings are available at Sean Minney, ‘Digital Transformation in the Australian Glam Sector: Staffing Differences’, Methodology, 14 January 2021, Centre for Digital Humanities Research, The Australian National University, metodhology.anu.edu.au/index.php/2021/01/14/digital-transformation-in-the-australian-glam-sector-staffing-differences/.

5. 5 Keir Winesmith and Susan Anderson, The Digital Future of Museums: Conversations and Provocations (London: Routledge, 2020), 220–1, doi.org/10.4324/9780429491573.

6. 6 Melissa M. Terras, Julianne Nyhan and Edward Vanhoutte, Defining Digital Humanities: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2016), doi.org/10.4324/9781315576251.

7. 7 Line Vestergaard Knudsen and Anne Rørbæk Olesen, ‘Complexities of Collaborating: Understanding and Managing Differences in Collaborative Design of Museum Communication’, in The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication, ed. Kirsten Drotner, Vince Dziekan, Ross Parry and Kim Christian Schrøder (London: Routledge, 2018), 204–18.

8. 8 Sebastian Chan and Aaron Cope, ‘Strategies against Architecture: Interactive Media and Transformative Technology at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’, Curator: The Museum Journal 58, no. 3 (2015): 352–68, doi.org/10.1111/cura.12118.

9. 9 Sejul Malde and Ross Parry, Defining the Digital Skills Needs of Museums—Phase Two Report (Leicester: University of Leicester, 2018), doi.org/10.29311/2018.02.

10. 10 Sophie Frost, ‘Learning “Digital Courage”: Using Technology to Build Agency and Equality in the Museum Workforce’, MW21, 31 January 2021, mw21.museweb.net/paper/learning-digital-courage-using-technology-to-build-agency-and-equality-in-the-museum-workforce/.

11. 11 Lauren Pikó and André Brett, ‘Trove, Disability, and Researching History: Or, Digital Materialism for Precarious Times’, History Australia 18, no. 4 (2021): 855–8, doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2021.1993748.

12. 12 Paola De Bernardi, Alberto Bertello and S. M. Riad Shams, ‘Logics Hindering Digital Transformation in Cultural Heritage Strategic Management: An Exploratory Case Study’, Tourism Analysis 24, no. 3 (1 July 2019): 315–27, doi.org/10.3727/108354219X15511864843876.

13. 13 Sophie Frost, ‘People, Change, Museums’, Podcast, May 2021, podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sophie-frost.

14. 14 State Library of New South Wales, ‘DX Lab’, accessed 30 April 2023, dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/; Don Undeen, ‘Introducing the Media Lab’, Met Museum (blog), 27 September 2013, www.metmuseum.org/blogs/digital-underground/posts/2013/introducing-the-media-lab.

15. 15 Mary Anne Kennan and Jessie Lymn, ‘Where Is the I(nformation) in GLAM? Education, Knowledge and Skill Requirements of Professionals Working in GLAM Sector Institutions’, Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association 68, no. 3 (July 3, 2019): 236–53, doi.org/10.1080/24750158.2019.1613708.

16. 16 Sarah Lutman, Koven J. Smith and Greta Rudolph, Digital Transformation: An Assessment of Grants Supporting Digital Staff in Museums (Miami: Knight Foundation, 2021).

17. 17 Hannah Lewi, Wally Smith, Dirk Vom Lehn and Steven Cooke, eds, The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites (London: Routledge, 2020), 1, doi.org/10.4324/9780429506765-1.

18. 18 Scott Allison, ‘The Responsive Organization: Coping with New Technology and Disruption’, Forbes, 10 February 2016.

19. 19 Some of the impacts of closures in the Australian context are outlined in the report Sculpting a National Cultural Plan, ‘Section 4: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Arts’ (Canberra: Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2021). For the broader context, see Daniel Pett, ‘Transcending and Expanding the Walls of the Museum: Digital Pivot, Digital by Default, Digital Transformation’, in The Oxford Handbook of Museum Archaeology, ed. Alice Stevenson (Oxford University Press, 2022), 528, doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198847526.013.30.

20. 20 Frank Bongiorno, ‘The Wait of History’, Inside Story, 7 May 2021, insidestory.org.au/the-wait-of-history/.

21. 21 C. Ruge and T. Denison. ‘The Use of Digital Image Collections and Social Media amongst Australian Historical Societies’, Information Research 22, no. 4 (2017), informationr.net/ir/22-4/paper778.html; Pinar Durgun, ‘Who Are Online Museum Collections for?’, Alexandria Archive Institute (blog), 17 December 2020, alexandriaarchive.org/2020/12/17/who-are-online-museum-collections-for/.

22. 22 Elizabeth Merritt, TrendsWatch: Building the Post-Pandemic World (Arlington: American Alliance of Museums, 2023), 6, 10.

23. 23 Ibid., 19.

24. 24 Deborah Agostino, Michela Arnaboldi and Melisa Diaz Lema, ‘New Development: COVID-19 as an Accelerator of Digital Transformation in Public Service Delivery’, Public Money & Management 41, no. 1 (January 2, 2021): 69–72, doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2020.1764206.

25. 25 Merritt, TrendsWatch, 22.

26. 26 Adrianne Russell and Aleia Brown, ‘Museums & #BlackLivesMatter’, CODE | WORDS: Technology and Theory in the Museum (blog), 21 September 2015, medium.com/code-words-technology-and-theory-in-the-museum/museums-blacklivesmatter-ba28c7111bec; Margaret Middleton and Jamie J Hagen, ‘Worker-Led Feminist Mobilizing for the Museum of the Future’, European Journal of Women’s Studies 29, no. 4 (November 2022): 598, doi.org/10.1177/13505068221125624.

27. 27 See the discussion of this in Kirsten Drotner Schrøder, Vince Dziekan, Ross Parry and Kim Christian, eds, The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication (London: Routledge, 2018), 8, doi.org/10.4324/9781315560168.

28. 28 Seb Chan, ‘Museums and Technology—A Gentle Provocation’, Medium (blog), 25 August 2022, sebchan.medium.com/museums-and-technology-a-gentle-provocation-b9992c2e4455 (original added).

29. 29 By our rough estimate using ABS Census data from 2021, the GLAM sector workforce is under 17,000 persons. In terms of occupations (Level 1 OCCP data), 5,700 identify as professionals, just over 3,000 as managers, then clerical and administration. Technical and trades were over 2,800 and 2,100, respectively. A further 1,700 were community and personal service workers, with around 550 in sales and 350 labourers. So, perhaps under 10,000 are working in roles relevant to this survey. See Australian Bureau of Statistics, ‘ANZSCO—Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations’, 22 November 2022, www.abs.gov.au/statistics/classifications/anzsco-australian-and-new-zealand-standard-classification-occupations/latest-release.

30. 30 For example, see the case studies outlined by GlamPeak, ‘Case Studies’, 27 July 2021, glampeak.org.au/case-studies/.

31. 31 Stephen Jeffrey, ‘Outside Funding Pays for New Trove Content after National Library Cuts’, Canberra Times, 24 April 2018, www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6039046/outside-funding-pays-for-new-trove-content-after-national-library-cuts/. We consulted submissions to the Tune Review (this was finally released in 2021). See National Archives of Australia, ‘Tune Review of the National Archives of Australia’, accessed 27 November 2023, www.naa.gov.au/about-us/tune-review.

32. 32 Helena Robinson, ‘“A Lot of People Going That Extra Mile”: Professional Collaboration and Cross-Disciplinarity in Converged Collecting Institutions’, Museum Management and Curatorship 31, no. 2 (14 March 2016): 141–58, doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2015.1070368; Wendy Davis and Katherine Howard, ‘Cultural Policy and Australia’s National Cultural Heritage: Issues and Challenges in the GLAM Landscape’, Australian Library Journal 62, no. 1 (February 2013): 15–26, doi.org/10.1080/00049670.2013.774684.

33. 33 A point of contrast here is ‘One by One: Building Digitally Confident Museums’, a project led by the University of Leicester, UK, and Southern University New Orlean, US, which has conducted a range of mapping studies, projects and collaborative work to support museums and museum workers through digital change. See One by One, ‘About’, accessed 27 November 2023, one-by-one.uk/whats-it-about/.

34. 34 The ‘I identify as’ option also included responses of male and non-binary.

35. 35 National Gallery of Australia, ‘Gender Equity in the Arts and Culture Context, accessed 9 February 2023, nga.gov.au/stories-ideas/gender-equity-in-the-arts-and-culture-context/; Amy Prcevich, Elvis Richardson and Miranda Samuels, Countess.Report, 2019, 8, accessed 27 November 2023, files.cargocollective.com/c1501468/2019-countess-report.pdf.

36. 36 David Throsby, Katya Petetskaya and Sunny Y. Shin, ‘Culture and the Gender Pay Gap for Australian Artists’, Australia Council of the Arts, 7 December 2022, australiacouncil.gov.au/advocacy-and-research/culture-and-the-gender-pay-gap-for-australian-artists/; Bill Browne, ‘Women and Men in Arts and Entertainment’, The Australia Institute, May 2021, australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/P1067-Women-and-men-in-arts-and-entertainment-Web.pdf.

37. 37 The reports from the ‘One by One’ project in the UK are an important source of information, see Sally-Anne Barnes, Doris Eikhof, Erika Kispeter and Ross Parry, Mapping the Museum Digital Skills Ecosystem—Phase One Report (Leicester: University of Leicester, 2018), doi.org/10.29311/2018.01; Deborah Agostino, Michela Arnaboldi and Melisa Diaz Lema, ‘New Development: COVID-19 as an Accelerator of Digital Transformation in Public Service Delivery’, Public Money & Management 41, no. 1 (2 January 2021): 69–72, doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2020.1764206.

38. 38 Prcevich, Richardson and Samuels, Countess.Report, 8.

39. 39 Anthony Larsson and Yamit Viitaoja, ‘Identifying the Digital Gender Divide: How Digitalization May Affect the Future Working Conditions for Women’, in The Digital Transformation of Labor, ed. Anthony Larsson and Robin Teigland (London: Routledge, 2019), 235–53, doi.org/10.4324/9780429317866-14.

40. 40 Camilla R. Fisher, Christopher D. Thompson and Rowan H. Brookes, ‘Gender Differences in the Australian Undergraduate STEM Student Experience: A Systematic Review’, Higher Education Research & Development 39, no. 6 (18 September 2020): 1155–68, doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1721441.

41. 41 National Gallery of Australia, ‘Gender Equity’.

42. 42 M. Caswell and M. Cifor, ‘Neither a Beginning Nor an End: Applying an Ethics of Care to Digitizing Archival Collections’, in DigitalGLAM: New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, ed. Hannah Lewi, Wally Smith, Dirk Vom Lehn, and Steven Cooke (London: Routledge, 2019), 159–68, doi.org/10.4324/9780429506765-14.

43. 43 Sophie Frost, ‘Emotional Labour’, in ‘People, Change, Museums’, Podcast, May 2021.

44. 44 Workplace Gender Equality Agency, ‘Higher Education Enrolments and Graduate Labour Market Statistics’, 28 April 2021, www.wgea.gov.au/resources/publications/higher-education-enrolments-and-graduate-labour-market-statistics.

45. 45 Pett, ‘Transcending and Expanding the Walls of the Museum’, 531.

46. 46 Asti Sherring, ‘Divergent Conservation: Cultural Sector Opportunities and Challenges Relating to the Development of Time-Based Art Conservation in Australasia’, AICCM Bulletin 41, no. 1 (2 January 2020): 69–82, doi.org/10.1080/10344233.2020.1809907.

47. 47 Mahendra Mahey, Al Al-Abdulla, Paula Bray, Gustavo Candela, Sally Chambers, Caleb Derven, Milena Dobreva, K. Gasser, S. Karner, K. Kokegei, D. Laursen, A. Potter, A. Straube, S-C. Wagner and L. Wilms, Open a GLAM Lab (Qatar: QU Press, 2019), glamlabs.io/books/open-a-glam-lab/.

48. 48 Sebastian Chan and Aaron Cope, ‘Strategies against Architecture: Interactive Media and Transformative Technology at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’, Curator: The Museum Journal 58, no. 3 (2015): 352–68, doi.org/10.1111/cura.12118.

49. 49 Graham Bell, ‘Online Formats and the GLAM Sector in the Time of COVID-19’, Europeana Pro (blog), 2 September 2020, pro.europeana.eu/post/online-formats-and-the-glam-sector-in-the-time-of-covid-19.

50. 50 David Tune, ‘Functional and Efficiency Review of the National Archives of Australia’, National Archives of Australia, 30 January 2020, 45, www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-03/functional-efficiency-review-national-archives-of-australia.PDF.

51. 51 Alison Croggon, ‘Culture Crisis’, Monthly, 1 October 2016, www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/october/1475244000/alison-croggon/culture-crisis; Deb Verhoeven and Mike Jones, ‘Trove’s Funding Runs Out in July 2023 – and the National Library Is Threatening to Pull the Plug. It’s Time for a Radical Overhaul’, Conversation, 23 December 2022, theconversation.com/troves-funding-runs-out-in-july-2023-and-the-national-library-is-threatening-to-pull-the-plug-its-time-for-a-radical-overhaul-197025.

52. 52 Caroline Wilson-Barnao, Digital Access and Museums as Platforms (London: Routledge, 2021), 59–62, doi.org/10.4324/9780429298691.

53. 53 See discussion of this by Seph Rodney and Robert J. Stein in Winesmith and Anderson, The Digital Future of Museums, 29–42.

54. 54 Pett, ‘Transcending and Expanding the Walls of the Museum’, 535; Howard Besser, ‘The Future of Museums. How Will They Evolve Due to Digital Changes and in Relation to Time-Based Media’, in Digital Art through the Looking Glass: New Strategies for Archiving, Collecting and Preserving in Digital Humanities, ed. Oliver Grau, Janina Hoth and Eveline Wandl-Vogt (Krems an der Donau: Edition Donau-Universität, 2019), 247–60.

55. 55 Merritt, TrendsWatch, 22.

56. 56 Parry, ‘The End of the Beginning’, 24–39.

57. 57 Winesmith and Anderson, The Digital Future of Museums, 221.

58. 58 Pett, ‘Transcending and Expanding the Walls of the Museum’, 536.

59. 59 For example, see the National Museum of Australia’s ‘Corporate Plan’ from 2022–23, nga.gov.au/media/dd/documents/Corporate_Plan_2022-23.pdf.