Documentary and Bibliographic Heritage is an integral part of Spanish Historical Heritage (Law 16/1985), which is included in Title VII in direct relation to Archives, Libraries and Museums. The inclusion of bibliographic heritage in the aforementioned Spanish law recognises its importance at a state level together with “immovable and movable objects of artistic, historical, paleontological, archaeological, ethnographic, scientific or technical interest” and “archaeological sites and areas, as well as natural sites, gardens and parks, which have artistic, historical or anthropological value” (Law 16/1985, Preliminary Title, article 1.2). In this context, the so-called GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) cultural institutions – including libraries, archives, non-commercial galleries, and museums – have rich collections whose preservation and accessibility must be guaranteed. The creation of European digital content has therefore been a determining factor in achieving this through the publication of European recommendations and guidelines to make the collections and information resources of these institutions accessible in digital format. In this regard, the first key milestone was the publication of the Digital Agenda for Europe (European Commission, 2010), which was a flagship initiative of the Europe 2020 Strategy for the development of a Digital Single Market to enable the free movement of goods, people, services, capital and seamless access to goods and services online for citizens and businesses.

Mention should also be made of the creation of Europeana – the digital library, archive, and museum of the European Union –, the publication of the report The New Renaissance (Niggeman et al., 2011) and the Recommendation of 27 October 2011 on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation (2011/711/EU) (European Commission, 2011). In the latter case, the aim was to increase the online accessibility of the European cultural heritage, to engage citizens and to foster the development of creative industries (European Commission, 2011). The results of its latest review were reflected in the report Cultural heritage: digitisation, online accessibility, and digital preservation (European Commission, 2018b), which has been a key factor in establishing the current policies and identifying trends and challenges on which to base the present research work.

As a result, many GLAM institutions have increased digitisation initiatives as a way to turn cultural and bibliographic heritage into a raw material for the digital economy and Europe’s cultural and creative industries, which account for 3% of the world Union’s GDP (European Commission, 2018a), as well as a substrate to stimulate innovation in other sectors. The strategic lines for the digitisation of cultural and bibliographic heritage are focused on the quality of digital heritage (European Commission, 2018b) by including end-user-oriented content.

In relation to the Digital Single Market, there has been a shift in focus in the European Commission’s strategies (European Commission, 2015; European Commission, 2018b; European Commission, 2019; Europeana, 2020), which conceive digitisation from a more complex and holistic perspective. Specifically, the strategies refer to the dissemination and accessibility, new ways of enjoying cultural content through experiential approaches, knowledge creation, preservation, use and reuse of cultural heritage.

After analysing all these publications, it has been concluded that the implementation of European digitisation and dissemination strategies requires that cultural institutions have to formulate, plan and develop projects for the dissemination and availability of their collections. In this way, citizens are enabled to enjoy cultural content, constantly adapting to the demands of a changing society, especially in the face of the health and social crisis caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

In Spain, the implementation of these European strategies for the dissemination of bibliographic collections has been carried out through the creation of virtual libraries – including the Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage1, the Virtual Library of Historical Press2 or the Hispanic Digital Library3– and virtual exhibitions, which constitute a fundamental tool for the educational sector. However, these types of resources and services lie within the state sphere, in national and university libraries, as they have the economic and material resources for their implementation. Expobus is an illustrative case of the adoption of digital tools for the dissemination of the libraries of the University of Seville, highlighting the virtual exhibitions implemented with Omeka (Mensaque Urbano, 2017). Alcaraz Martínez (2012) was responsible for explaining the process of installation, creation of digital objects, metadata configuration, tagging and interface of this open-source software for GLAM institutions.

In the Spanish context, it is also evident that many art libraries are disadvantaged in terms of adopting dissemination strategies due to their lack of financial and material resources as well as qualified staff. Furthermore, Steele considers that “any effort towards marketing and promotions must start with a clear marketing plan, one with a strategic vision at its core, and which takes into account your library or organisation’s strategic plan” (2018, p. 4). Steele complemented this consideration by stating that “it is necessary for each individual library to discover what is effective, depending on their unique circumstances” (2018, p. 33).

The lack of financial, material, and human resources in special libraries have a negative impact on the dissemination of their bibliographic collections and on their limited social projection, despite being “centres which, although characterised by their heterogeneity, stand out for the richness, variety and specificity of their collections, in many cases of great heritage value” (Technical Commission of Special Libraries Cooperation, 2021, p. 2).

In this context, the Technical Commission of Specialised Libraries of the Council for Library Cooperation has created an interactive Map of Specialised Libraries4 in Spain by means of georeferencing and a directory of library networks with the intention of making this group of special libraries visible on the basis of a thematic classification of these libraries. In parallel, the IFLA Art Libraries Section is developing a Wikipedia page as a directory of the main art libraries (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, n.d).

An illustrative case of virtual exhibitions in the field of special libraries was the research project developed by the IDEA Lab Research Group with the collections of the Central Military Library entitled ‘La Primera Vuelta al Mundo y la Música’ (The First Trip Around the World) to commemorate the fifth centenary of the first round-the-world trip (Figure 1).

Museum libraries are one of the main types of special GLAM libraries. It is estimated that there are 218 museum and archaeological libraries in Spain (http://directoriobibliotecas.mcu.es/). It is worth highlighting the creation of a Network of State Libraries known as the BIMUS Network, whose union catalogue is made up of the individual catalogues of the 16 state libraries directly managed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport and the individual catalogues of the libraries of the following museums: the National Museum of Theatre, the Prado Museum and the Queen Sofía National Art Museum Centre (https://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/cultura/areas/museos/mc/bimus/quienes-somos.html). These 16 Spanish museum libraries were analysed and it was concluded that the creation of library networks is a “key factor for the development, dissemination and management of special libraries” (Cobo-Serrano et al., 2021, p. 481). These libraries constitute a “large and interesting group that provides an important service for research, teaching and access to quality and interesting information” (Technical Commission of Special Libraries Cooperation, 2017, p. 7). Progressively, “the importance of the library within the museum is being recognised as is, consequently, the need for true library specialists” (Hernández, 1997, p. 287), since “museum libraries see themselves as part of an information environment at their museum” (Wateren, 1999, p. 197).

In view of the approaches set out in the literature review, challenges of the research project can be summarised as follows:

This paper presents a museum library project plan which belongs to a Spanish state research project to increase the visibility, accessibility and dissemination of the bibliographic heritage of the National Archaeological Museum Library through the generation of virtual exhibitions.

The state research project (2021–2023) was divided into the following phases and sub-phases:

As the project is currently in the implementation phase, results only refer to the GLAM Laboratory and the project design, which has delivered the project plan described here. Once future phases have been completed it is anticipated that the results and lessons learned will be shared.

Increasingly, projects and studies on heritage are being implemented and carried out in different thematic areas, and the cultural sector is on the rise to promote and make visible the bibliographic heritage of its cultural institutions. In this sense, state digitisation campaigns, digital humanities projects and calls for research and innovation programmes contribute to making bibliographic heritage visible through mobile devices.

Concerning the configuration of the project team, some practical implications highlight the importance of mixing interdisciplinary and inter-institutional approaches. From a Library Science and professional perspective, the proposal could be an example of good practices to be replicated in other GLAM institutions by combining the use of technologies with the bibliographic collections of cultural institutions. From a social perspective, citizens will benefit from this project as it combines the visibility of the bibliographic heritage of the National Archaeological Museum with the dissemination of its content in the digital environment through virtual exhibitions. Additionally, the research project contributes to the education system through the interweaving of museum and library collections.