What could the diverse uses of digital cultural heritage teach us about designing activities and services to facilitate social development?

Provisional findings of interviews conducted with users of digital cultural heritage largely at the British Library will be highlighted, including patterns identified when mapping responses onto an information environment model developed by Lievrouw (2001) and expanded by Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt (2024). The analysis will focus on various factors including what was done with digital heritage and how, what skills were required to implement the projects, how access was provided, who benefited from the work, what (if any) impact was achieved and whether it resulted in social development etc. There will be an analysis of interviews with those who have been involved in providing services to enable users to work with digital cultural heritage in GLAM experimental physical and/or virtual spaces (Labs). There will be a special focus on how these services evolved and changed over time, especially in the context of changing institutional priorities and the increasing interest in Artificial Intelligence. There will be a discussion as to the provisional findings of this work and what components could be included in future work to enable social development when working with digital cultural heritage.