From April 25-26, 60 GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) practitioners and disciplinary scholars from 18 countries gathered in Vancouver at Internet Archive Canada for Collections as Data: State of The Field and Future Directions. The working summit was conducted as part of the Mellon foundation supported Collections as Data: Part to Whole - an effort focused on supporting responsible computational use of gallery, library, archive, and museum collections. During this event participants helped kickoff a next version of the Santa Barbara Statement on Collections as Data - known from this point forward as the Vancouver Statement on Collections as Data. This new version is needed given the growth of international collections as data work and an ever evolving landscape with respect to supporting responsible computational use (e.g., recent, increasingly ubiquitous adoption of generative AI, large language model development, multimodal language model development, and so forth).
In the spirit of inclusive collaboration and co-development, we share a draft version of the Vancouver Statement on Collections as Data and invite all interested parties to join us as crafters of a statement that best represents our collective challenges. Whether you consider yourself steeped in collections as data work, adjacent work, or consider yourself new to the conversation, we hope you will join us and contribute your thoughts on the draft Vancouver Statement on Collections as Data in comments and suggestions. Broad, granular, and fundamental contributions are all welcome and encouraged!
The Vancouver Statement on Collections as Data will be open to contributions from July 24 - August 4.
Thomas Padilla
Hannah Scates Kettler
Yasmeen Shorish
Stewart Varner