ABOUT IDbGLAM
Connecting people with culture—and cultural information with the world.
IDbGLAM is building shared digital infrastructure for galleries, libraries, archives, museums, historic places, performing arts organizations, and the communities surrounding them. Through one interconnected platform, people can discover cultural places, exhibitions, events, tours, collections, and organizations locally and globally.
Culture is everywhere. Information about it isn’t.
Cultural information is scattered across thousands of institutional websites, tourism platforms, social networks, event calendars, and aging databases. Smaller organizations are often the hardest to find, even when they are doing essential work in their communities.
IDbGLAM brings this information together in a structured, searchable, and increasingly verified network—making culture easier for people to discover and cultural organizations easier for digital platforms and emerging technologies to understand.
What IDbGLAM connects
Places
Museums, libraries, archives, galleries, historic sites, theaters, cultural districts, and other places where culture lives.
Experiences
Exhibitions, performances, programs, events, tours, and other ways people can engage with culture.
Communities
Organizations, heritage areas, tourism partners, funders, and networks that sustain cultural ecosystems.
Knowledge
Verified institutional information supporting public discovery, research, tourism, partnerships, and responsible AI applications.
More than a directory
IDbGLAM is designed as a connected cultural-data platform. A record can link an institution with its locations, collections, exhibitions, events, tours, partners, and wider community. Organizations can claim and maintain their information. IDbGLAM can verify records against authoritative sources. Together, these connections create a more useful and trustworthy picture of the cultural landscape.
Beginning in Baltimore. Built for the world.
Baltimore is IDbGLAM’s first proof of concept—a city with an extraordinary concentration of museums, libraries, historic places, artists, theaters, festivals, cultural organizations, and deeply rooted neighborhood histories. By connecting this cultural ecosystem in one place, IDbGLAM can demonstrate how shared infrastructure strengthens discovery, tourism, collaboration, and public access. What works in Baltimore can then be adopted and adapted by communities elsewhere.
Technology that gives something back
IDbGLAM was established in Maryland as a benefit corporation. Its purpose extends beyond commercial growth: the company is being built to strengthen access to cultural knowledge and support the organizations and communities that produce it. IDbGLAM intends to return 10% of profits generated within participating communities to local cultural initiatives.
Founded by John Suau
John Suau is a museum and cultural-sector leader with more than 30 years of experience working across museums, professional associations, historic sites, and community-based cultural organizations. His career has included leadership and service with The Peale, the DC History Center, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, the American Alliance of Museums, and the Smithsonian Institution. He has worked internationally and speaks English, Spanish, and Italian. John created IDbGLAM after repeatedly encountering the same problem: cultural organizations generate enormous public value, but the digital systems used to describe, connect, and discover them remain fragmented. IDbGLAM brings together his experience in museum leadership, cultural access, design, technology, and nonprofit strategy to address that gap.
Help build a more connected cultural world.
IDbGLAM is growing through the participation of cultural organizations, professionals, community partners, technology providers, visitors, and supporters.