A global organisation of museums & museum professionals committed to the promotion and protection of cultural heritage

The Towards a National Collection (TaNC) conference took place on 20 and 21 November 2024 at the Contact Theatre in Manchester. The conference was a celebrat...

We live in a digital society where the power of search engines, and increasingly AI, means we are used to having the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. But as GLAM professionals and collections researchers, we know that only a small proportion of collections in UK galleries, libraries, archives and museums are digitised, and available for publics and researchers. The reasons for this are varied, and include lack of funding, resources and the digital skills often necessary to navigate the world of digital collections. We’ll discuss why we think it is so important to support every GLAM organisation to start, continue or enhance their digital collections, and to share their rich and diverse collections in an openly accessible format. We’ll also share how we have approached the challenge to build capacity in a variety of organisational types and sizes, aiming to build both capacity and confidence in working with digital collections.

This document presents the policy recommendations of Towards a National Collection (TaNC), a five-year, £18.9 million investment in the UK’s world-renowned museums, archives, libraries and galleries, ...