Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On Complexity of GLAMs’ Digital Ecosystem: APIs as Change Makers for Opening up Knowledge

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Culture and Computing. Design Thinking and Cultural Computing (HCII 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12795))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

This paper explores the role of Application Programming Interface, (API), in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector, and reflects on its role for opening up cultural digital heritage for inclusive future memory making. It also discusses possibilities of a participatory API ecosystem, going beyond high quality metadata and data interoperability. APIs are often seen as facilitators for opening up knowledge, but when it comes to future memory making, little is known with regards to the power relations that are constructed within the digital ecosystem and how does this influence the interplay. The paper proposes a contribution towards this domain, critically exploring aspects that are facilitating or hindering people’s participation for enabling future collective memory making.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See the project here: https://www.helsinkikuvia.fi/. Accessed on 10.02.2021.

  2. 2.

    For more approaches on what access and accessibility mean, please see the contribution by Cassandra Kist and Quoc-Tan Tran on this volume, titled “Breaking boundaries, creating connectivities: Enabling access to digitized museum collections”.

References

  1. Avoindata.fi: Finna. https://www.opendata.fi/data/en_GB/dataset/finna. Accessed 10 Feb 2021

  2. Bodle, R.: Regimes of sharing. Inf. Commun. Soc. 14(3), 320–337 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2010.542825

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Celis Bueno, C.: The Attention Economy. Labour, Time and Power in Cognitive Capitalism. Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics. Rowman & Littlefield International, New York (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Cusumano, M.A., Gawer, A., Yoffie, D.B.: The Business of Platforms. Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. HarperCollins Publishers, New York (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  5. DigitalNZ: Developers. https://digitalnz.org/developers. Accessed 10 Feb 2021

  6. Floridi, L.: The Fight for digital sovereignty: what it is, and why it matters, especially for the EU. Philos. Technol. 33(3), 369–378 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00423-6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Fuller, M.: Media Ecologies. Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture. MIT Press, Cambridge, Leonardo (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Giaccardi, E.: Heritage and Social Media. Understanding Heritage in a Participatory Culture, 1st edn. Routledge, New York (2012). Edited by Elisa Giaccardi

    Google Scholar 

  9. Helmond, A.: The platformization of the web: making web data platform ready. Soc. Med. + Soc. 1(2), 205630511560308 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115603080

  10. Jordan, T.: The Digital Economy. Polity, Cambridge, Medford (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Kenney, M., Zysman, J.: The rise of the platform economy. Issues Sci. Technol. 32(3), 61–69 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Kidd, J.: Enacting engagement online: framing social media use for the museum. Inf. Technol. People 24(1), 64–77 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1108/09593841111109422

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Koch, G.: Ethnography of digital infrastructures. In: Koch, G. (ed.) Koch, Gertraud 2017: Ethnography of Digital Infrastructures. Gertraud Digitisation: Theories and Concepts for Empirical Cultural Research, pp. 78–91. Routledge, London & New York (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ledesma, A.: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Open Data: A Case Study in the Harvard Art Museums’ API (2016). https://medium.com/@andrea_ledesma/how-we-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-open-data-a-case-study-in-the-harvard-art-museums-api-893c3f40ecb7. Accessed 23 Dec 2020

  15. Norton, K.: API Definition & Meaning (2020). https://www.webopedia.com/definitions/api/. Accessed 23 Dec 2020

  16. Open Knowledge Foundation: What is open? https://okfn.org/opendata/. Accessed 10 Feb 2021

  17. Proctor, N.: Digital: museum as platform, curator as champion, in the age of social media. Curator: Museum J. 53(1), 35–43 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2009.00006.x

  18. Rijksmuseum: RijksData (2021). https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/

  19. Sherratt, T.: From portals to platforms: building new frameworks for user engagement (2013). https://www.nla.gov.au/our-publications/staff-papers/from-portal-to-platform#

  20. Simon, N.: The participatory museum. Museum 2.0, Santa Cruz, California (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Simon, N.: The art of relevance. Museum 2.0, Santa Cruz (California) (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Smithsonian Institute: Open Access Developer Tools. https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools. Accessed 10 Feb 2021

  23. Srnicek, N.: Platform Capitalism. Theory Redux. Polity, Cambridge, Malden (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Star, S.L.: The ethnography of infrastructure. Am. Behav. Sci. 43(3), 377–391 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1177/00027649921955326

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Taffel, S.: Digital Media Ecologies. Entanglements of Content, Code and Hardware. Bloomsbury Publishing, New York (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Tan, L.: Museums and cultural memory in an age of networks. Int. J. Cult. Stud. 16(4), 383–399 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877912460615

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. van Dijck, J.: Governing digital societies: private platforms, public values. Comput. Law Secur. Rev. 36, 105377 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2019.105377

  28. van Dijck, J., Poell, T., Waal, M. de: The Platform Society. Oxford University Press. Oxford Scholarship Online (2018). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.001.0001

  29. Wilkinson, M.D., et al.: The FAIR guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Sci. Data 3, 160018 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18

  30. Wuyts, J.: Cultivating APIs in the cultural heritage sector. Master’s dissertation, kU Leuven (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Zuboff, S.: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, New York (2019)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work is part of the POEM (Participatory Memory Practices) project and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 764859. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Gertraud Koch, Cassandra Kist, Jennifer Krueckeberg and Quoc-Tan Tran for insightful conversations on drafts of this paper. Also, I would like to thank Sophia Mirashrafi for reviewing this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Angeliki Tzouganatou

Authors
  1. Angeliki Tzouganatou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Angeliki Tzouganatou .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Matthias Rauterberg

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Tzouganatou, A. (2021). On Complexity of GLAMs’ Digital Ecosystem: APIs as Change Makers for Opening up Knowledge. In: Rauterberg, M. (eds) Culture and Computing. Design Thinking and Cultural Computing. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12795. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77431-8_22

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77431-8_22

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-77430-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-77431-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation