Miklošević, Željka and Vujić, Žarka.
(2013).
Many-to-Many Socio-Cultural Communication as a Basis for Joint Activities in the Virtual Environment of the MLA Sector.
Čitalište : naučni časopis za teoriju i praksu bibliotekarstva(22).
pp. 19-29.
ISSN 2217-5563
Abstract
Safeguarding cultural memory of a community by taking care of the inherited artefacts and making them available
to the public can be said to be the solid common point of reference of museums, libraries and archives, commonly
known as the MLA sector. Although the historical development of each of these three types of institutions was
marked by specifi c and differentiating characteristics in various respects, the past several decades have seen a more
extensive collaboration between them, especially regarding documentation standards, digitization of heritage and
collaboration on exhibition projects. The introduction of ICT has radically changed the way of thinking and working
of these institutions, especially with the adoption of social media into their communication strategies with the
audiences, who have grown increasingly independent and self-confi dent in digital environments. However, despite
the various forms of participation tools offered by museums, libraries and archives to their online users (tagging,
blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the like), the main characteristic of such communication strategies has in most cases
been reduced to institutional communication. In other words these institutions have not used the social media and
the tools that facilitate user-produced content to the full extent for creating stronger links between their online
users and their heritage content (primarily those related to the digital or digitized collections). A form of heritage or,
more broadly defi ned, cultural mediation by both professionals and users is envisaged in this paper to be performed
through an MLA platform, based on the use of social media within the framework of constructivist theory of learning.
The way that a virtual platform might produce favourable results in engaging users with heritage, while at the same
time nurturing cooperative practices among different institutions within the MLA sector is through professional
and user-created interpretations. The constructivist museum exhibition has been taken as an example of possible
approach to users, while Kolb’s model of experiential learning has provided the theoretical background. According
to the model, experiential learning entails concrete experience (encounter with heritage items from all three types
of institutions carefully chosen and interpreted), refl ective observation (acquiring scientifi c information about the
heritage items), abstract conceptualisation (acquiring cultural and social information about the heritage items
through different contexts provided by various types of professional perspectives and digital models of knowledge
presentation) and active experimentation (individual manipulation with the heritage items and placing them in
new contexts shaped by participatory and conversational media). The goal of the platform facilitating many-tomany
communication among institutions and their virtual users is to create conditions for greater individual contact
between people and heritage, entice collaboration and collaborative learning and identity building. The platform can
also be seen as an advantage for the work of the MLA sector in the future which will increasingly be populated with
different form of heritage institutions and organisations, most likely commercially defi ned. In such a competitive
environment, interpretational practices of harmonized and collaborative efforts of museums, library and archives
might keep their longstanding reputation of legitimate, trustworthy and community oriented institutions. In addition,
such collaboration can be taken as a positive step towards more participative and inclusive practices which support
and promote cultural and social empowerment of the communities to which these institutions serve.
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