1	Digital Asset Management: Grounds for Collaboration Scott E. Siddall Denison University
2	Presentation The Context Planning the Work Outlook
3	My point? Digital asset management is Important Enterprise-wide Can be sustained and enhanced only through collaboration and planning
4	The Context The human need to organize
5	The Context How much has been digitized? Lots, but not enough. We all have important analog resources Just imagine how much hard drive capacity we’ve used up in the last 20 years
6	The Context – evolving concepts Document management
7	The Context – what are digital assets? Images Some common and some unique Quality varies enormously Audio and video multiple formats including streaming Texts and images of texts PDFs, Word, OCR, searchable or not Learning objects simple and compound (entire course content) URLs
8	The Context – what are digital assets? OK….anything digital… Binary Large Objects (BLOBs)
9	The Context - databases to the rescue
10	The Context - databases to the rescue Objects can be digital assets themselves digital video clips, digital images of events, PDFs
11	The Context - DAM databases Binary content cannot itself be easily searched, indexed
12	The Context – metadata is crucial Librarians have crafted metadata for decades Data about data Metadata: Describes item Facilitates management, description and preservation Enables discovery of item Several schema (read open standards) MARC record in the OPAC Database of bibliographic and item records Searchable, indexed Cataloged objects are textual, physical, digital
13	The Context – metadata is crucial DC – Dublin Core http://dublincore.org METS – Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard http://www.log.gov/standards/mets/ (works with OAI) TEI – Text Encoding Initiative http://www.tei-c.org/ VRA – Visual Resources Association http://vraweb.org/ EAD – Encoded Archival Description http://www.loc.gov/ead/ CDWA – Categories for the Description of Art http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/cdwa/ RDF – Resource Description Framework An XML standard
14	The Context – metadata is expensive Time required for content specialists to create and proof key fields of metadata Balancing metadata quality with results Risks of not finding materials Risks of “dirty” results Perfect can be the enemy of good
15	The Context – metadata is expensive
16	The Context – the market Scope and size of DAM market $1.5-3.0 billion annually; $320 million in profits 600+ vendors with 1,200+ applications Ripe for consolidation The commercial players Artesia (publishing) Canto (desktop to small workgroup) eMotion (broadcast) MediaBin by Interwoven (corporate) North Plains ‘Telescope’ (publishing) Webware (corporate) IBM and Stellent (corporate) Extensis (desktop to small workgroup)
17	The Context – The higher ed niche The higher education market players Auto-Graphics Digital Asset Management CONTENTdm (e.g., Univ. of Puget Sound’s collections) Documentum DAM Dynix Horizon Digital Library Endeavor ENCompass Ex Libris Digitool Innovative Interfaces Millennium Metasource Luna Imaging Insight SIRSI Hyperion VTLS VITAL (Why or why not integrate into campus OPAC?)
18	The Context – open source Open source DAM systems FEDORA Flexible Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture Release 1.2.1 released April 20, 2004 Digital Library Extension Service from the University of Michigan Greenstone e.g., Chopin collection at the University of Chicago Madison Digital Image Database MDID; v2.0 in July And homegrown systems e.g., Whitman Image Project
19	The Context - ARTstor The art history and image equivalent of JSTOR Funded by the Mellon Foundation “Grand Opening” on July 1 http://artstor.org
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23	The Context - ARTstor Subscription basis 300k images, largely art and art history Pilot of hosting for campuses, individuals Addresses intellectual property issues Federated searching to discover ARTstor and local content through one interface High resolution images Scene7’s Infinite Imaging Platform Individual accounts Provide workspaces, instructor tools Allows annotations Images and groups of images (searches, gatherings) have a URL for insertion into CMS
24	The Context – ARTstor Offline Viewer Analog to walking around with slide trays Local application Downloads encrypted JPEGs Protects IP of image owners Allows ARTstor collections to be used in non-networked environments
25	Planning the Work What’s it take to implement a successful DAM project? Planning, planning and planning With all stakeholders = Grounds for collaboration
26	Planning the Work Set goals, scope and get political support What is the nature of the content? Who is the audience? How will the collection be accessed and used? Select and customize metadata scheme Who is going to catalog objects? Is the infrastructure ready? How will cataloging quality be assessed and enforced? Set digitization standards Evaluate and select software and hardware How are projects and even objects selected? How will copyrights be managed? Is there a campus IP policy?
27	Planning the Work - goals What’s a collection? Institutional holdings Galleries Museum exhibits Historical societies Special collections Archives Faculty collections Learning objects eReserves Emeriti collections Research and teaching collections Student collections ePortfolios
28	Planning the Work - goals Collections can be: Discipline-based one or more departments From consortia of similar institutions Thematic collections from dissimilar institutions public and academic libraries, museums, historical societies Centralized or distributed for federated searching
29	Planning the Work - goals Other types of “collections” Public affairs campus photos Senior theses Products of faculty scholarship Managed documents
30	Planning the Work - standards Selecting metadata schemes
31	Planning the Work - standards Setting digitization standards… 1600 x 1200 at 24 bit color depth JPEG2000 For printing Color management
32	Planning the Work Technologies Server selections Storage and backup requirements Bandwidth Media types, streaming Client selections Plug-ins, thick and thin clients Piloting and assessing the software
33	Planning the Work
34	Planning the Work - software specifications Allows collaborative and distributed collection development/management Platform (hardware, operating system) agnostic – server and client Web-based client with easy-to-use interface Basic and advanced searching across collections, across sites (federated searches, virtual collections, stored result sets) Common client-side players/viewers Client tools for manipulation, comparison, per-user annotation Flexible support for metadata standards Support for many object formats, and developing formats (e.g., jpeg 2000) Support for high-resolution, zoom-in features Supports Unicode text for display and searching URL access to objects Customizable display interface Based on open standards (database, metadata, etc.) Flexible access control list features Standards-based export functions to avoid “lock-in” and promote remote indexing
35	Planning the Work - workflow
36	Planning the Work Who’s going to catalog the objects? Automated metadata creation Video analysis can produce metadata Image capture with data
37	Planning the Work – collaborate! Multiple goals Range of standards Cross political boundaries Shared control, responsibility Expensive metadata Collaboration is not optional
38	Planning the Work – collaborate! Faculty collaborating with librarians, technologists and students Institutional representatives collaborating to plan cataloging and access to campus collections Consortial representatives planning metadata structures for regional projects
39	Outlook – the market Market effects on the higher ed niche Consolidation of vendors Push to portals and enterprise wide solutions Open source developments will pressure commercial offerings, and may eventually replace some
40	Outlook – the tools Proprietary systems may “lock in” content with tools Open standards and interoperability will be a “must have”
41	Outlook – the tools Large institutions: Different tools for asset management, content management, document management, etc. Small institutions: one tool serving many needs
42	Outlook - our needs Faculty need to experiment with DAM tools as part of planning process We must collaborate to avoid reinventing wheels, to sustain DAM projects We need better searching tools, metadata automation, digital rights management DAM will become an important enterprise application – right behind ERP and CRM DAM tools will eventually be integrated into portals
43	Conclusion? Digital asset management…. Is important today Will be enterprise-wide tomorrow Can be sustained and enhanced only through collaboration and planning
44	Resources Vendors focused on the higher education market ARTstor Auto-Graphics Digital Asset Management CONTENTdm Documentum DAM Dynix Horizon Digital Library Endeavor ENCompass Ex Libris Digitool Innovative Interfaces Millennium Metasource Luna Imaging Insight SIRSI Hyperion VTLS Vital Bitter Harvest (discussion of OAI harvesting issues) Global Society for Asset Management EContent’s Research Center on DAM (news) Digital Asset Management Symposium (annual event) Journal of Digital Asset Management Digital Asset Management in the Liberal Arts (proceedings of a symposium) Digital Asset Management Initiative at the University of Michigan OhioLINK Digital Media Center Preserving Cornell's Digital Image Collections Digital Imaging Tutorial from Cornell Research Library Group’s Guides to Quality in Visual Resource Imaging