Collaboration as a wave of future: exploring experiences from Croatian archives

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on research that examined the relationship between, and collaboration of, Croatian archives, libraries and museums.

Design/methodology/approach

Online survey and unstructured interviews with archivists from across Croatia were used to investigate collaborative activities in Croatian archives.

Findings

Archivists see libraries and museums as their natural partners and believe that collaboration facilitates their mission and leads to better service to patrons. However, they all believe that there is room for more intensive inter‐institutional partnerships. Apart from numerous benefits, they also indicated a number of challenges they face in collaborative activities.

Research limitations/implications

A larger sample for qualitative methodology would greatly serve to clarify and expand upon the findings.

Practical implications

The results of this survey are useful to cultural heritage professionals in planning and organisation of collaborative projects. Also, government and authorised institutions can learn about what kind of support archives would need to embark on a more intensive collaboration.

Originality/value

To the author's knowledge, this is the first work that looks in detail into collaborative activities of archives. As far as the authors are aware, similar investigations have been carried out regarding library and museum collaboration only.

Citation

Faletar Tanackoviæ, S. and Badurina, B. (2008), "Collaboration as a wave of future: exploring experiences from Croatian archives", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 557-574. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830810920897