Presentation from Henry Stewart DAMNY Conference, May 6, 2016. Session Abstract: Nonprofits compete in the same world and vie for the same customers as all other consumer-oriented businesses. Success in that competitive landscape is driven in large part by digital content. In order to attract and engage 21st century audiences and contributors, nonprofit organizations have had to become digital publishing operations, providing access to meaningful content on a scale that was never anticipated. This evolution has been a real challenge for the charities, museums, libraries and archives that serve the public. While most nonprofits have become adept at producing digital content, the sector has been playing catch up when it comes to organizing, cataloging and sharing that content. Not only is there a large and rapidly-growing body of digital content being produced, but there is also the cold reality of appropriate budget constraints. The big question: How can the nonprofit sector not simply survive this evolution, but actually thrive? This session will use an interactive case study format to bring multiple perspectives to the topic at hand. Panelists from both larger and smaller organizations, representing different types of nonprofits, will share their stories. Along the way, we will explore commonalities and unique needs, and we’ll address some of the challenges faced by the nonprofit sector, such as: How do we implement and ensure the adoption of effective DAMs tools and practices? How do we deal with complex metadata models? How can we control costs while still achieving our aspirations? By leveraging the power of collaboration, attendees and presenters will learn from each other, gain practical knowledge, expand professional networks, and set the stage for success.

1. Date: May 8, 2016Presentation title
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DAMs in the Nonprofit Sector
From Striving to Thriving
Inspiration:
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to
thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some
humor, and some style”
– Maya Angelou

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DAMs in the Nonprofit Sector
From Striving to Thriving

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Introductions
Douglas Hegley
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Julie Shean
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Marianne Nouwen
Van Gogh Museum
Marianne Peereboom
Van Gogh Museum

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Why?

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It’s nonprofit solidarity, baby!
• Build on last year’s HSDAMNY sessions
• Collaboration!
Apologies for cheesy 1970s American TV reference

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Five vital topics
• Implementation DAMs – starting from scratch
• Adopting DAMs – “phase two” (staff uptake)
• Video … it’s hard
• Metadata ... it’s hard too!
• Rights management, argh!

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One Year Later …

8. Competition is Fierce

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We are ALL digital publishing houses

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Mission
• Service to the community
• Mandate to preserve
• Mandate to share (make
accessible)
• Sensitive to rights and

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Nonprofits
• Practical limits on $
• Limited software spend in general
• Limited commitment to long-term technology investments
- Too often dependent on one skilled individual

13. Image Source: https://clintondentalcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cleaning-your-toothbrush.jpg
“Standards are like toothbrushes, everybody agrees you should
have one, but no one wants to use yours”
Attributed to Joe Croser (variations attributed to Connie Morella)

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Okay, Douglas is
really starting to
bore me now …
Image Source: http://www.christinecarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bigstock-Yawning-7116292.jpg

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17. This document is for internal use only and should
not be circulated beyond Metropolitan Museum staff.
Digital Asset Management
2006/2016
Julie Shean

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1870-1920

19. The Met Today…
Date: May 8, 2016DAM @ The Met 2006/2016
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• ~2 million art objects in the collection
• 17 curatorial departments
• 30-50 art exhibitions per year
• 6.3 million visitors (2015)
• 35 million unique website visitors (2015)
• 1,244,461 digital files in the DAMS
growing by hundreds per day

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IOWA DAMS
CMS
Custom ordering
application
matched incoming
assets to object
placeholders
Photograph Studio
still photography
JPEGs deployed on a
schedule to TMS and
then website
TIFFs manually
downloaded
Workflow 1.0
object placeholder records
added to the DAMS

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DAMSDatabase
Media
transcoding
engine(s)
Workflow
engine
Application
server(s)
Search
engine
Web
portal(s)
DAMS are really tech platforms

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DAMS
“Local Collections” stills,
audio, books, and
analogue scans
Digital Media videos
YouTube
CMS
DAMS now asks for
object info on import
+ nightly ETL refresh

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Museum DAMS workflows are *mostly about our image collections
DAMS are resource-intensive and complicated
Keep your DAMS platform current
Integrations add value (and overhead and risk)
Consumer-side workflows will change relatively quickly
Parting thoughts…

31. Date: May 8, 2016Presentation title
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Case Study Two

32. “400 pictures of the bedroom”
Collection
Management &
DAM in the
Van Gogh Museum

33. Today’s topics
Van Gogh Museum, facts & figures
CIS-DAM integration
Challenges
Lessons learned (high ambition vs
reality check)
8-5-2016Vincent van Gogh Museum Amsterdam 33

34. 8-5-2016Vincent van Gogh Museum Amsterdam 34
Van Gogh Museum – Amsterdam – The Netherlands
Established 1973 by Ir. Vincent Willem van Gogh
(Vincent’s nephew) + Dutch Government
300 staff | Number of visitors per year: 1.5-2 million

35. Our mission
“The Van Gogh Museum makes
the life and work of Vincent van
Gogh and the art of his time
accessible to as many people as
possible in order to enrich and
inspire them.”
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36. Collections
Paintings
• Van Gogh: 210 – Other 290
Drawings
• Van Gogh: 500 – Other 680
Prints
• 500 Japanese prints and
• 1500 magazine illustrations collected by Van
Gogh
• 1800 French prints
Various objects: sculpture, furniture, coins
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37. Collections
Letters:
• Most of extant correspondence
of Van Gogh
• Family correspondence
• Theo’s business letters
Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831-1915)
• 1260 objects (art works & craft objects)
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38. “Rich digital imaging”
Standard (“beauty light”)
Polarized
Raking light
Details
Tiling
Verso
With frame
Our photo studio
Operational 2009
Metamorfoze standards

39. Challenge 1: CIS – DAM integration
1. CIS databases: COLLECT (museum objects) and DOCUMENT
(library catalog)
2. Subset of metadata from all records in COLLECT and DOCUMENT
are imported in DAM (changes are pulled daily)
3. DAM matches object number in filename with CIS record
4. DAM copies the metadata from the CIS record to the asset record
5. No match? No CIS metadata (only other metadata sets)
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40. CIS record:
blue background
Preferred image (web): beige
background

41. CIS to DAM
URL executes search in DAM for all
assets related to this art object
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Lots of tabs with various metadata
fields: rich info about art object
1 picture for
reference
purposes
copied back
from DAM

42. Challenge 2: add rich asset metadata
automatically
_gbca
Cropped = true
Image status = approved image for print
Exposure = beauty light
_r
Exposure = raking light
_r2
Raking light type = top right
_vs_
Verso = True
_wfr
Frame = Work in frame

43. Challenges 3: Migration – phase 2
Phase 1: Go Live June 2016 with photostudio images
Phase 2: From June onwards…
Goals:
- Add more types of assets
- Add departments, one at the time
- Train and add super users per department
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44. Migration – phase 2 (cont.)
Preparation:
• Which assets do they have
• How are assets stored, named, used, shared...?
• Which metadata are required?
• Changes to DAM configuration needed?
• Can metadata be added through ingestion rules, bulk edit etc.
• Define work to be done before migration (clean-up, standardization
file names etc.)
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45. Migration – phase 2 (cont.)
- Adapt DAM
- Ingest existing files
- Set (new) roles and permissions
- Train department super user
- …. and off they go!
Risk: time consuming & labor intensive
Pay offs: great benefits in terms of management, (re)-usability,
sharing, collaboration, quality control, etc.
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46. Migration - phase 2
Example: Restoration department
Folder “Bedroom”

47. Organizational & technical reality check
Working with DAM system means totally different workflow
Gathering requirements from colleagues
 who are in the “old workflow” mindset…
 … or see DAM from an CIS perspective
 Risk: turning DAM into ‘shadow’ CIS or vice versa
Departments feel ‘proprietory’ about their own images
 Don’t solve through roles and permissions what should be solved by
cooperation, rules for use, respecting expertise
People fear “pollution” by assets they don’t use
 Solve not by permissions but by good filtering options
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48. CIS – DAM integration is by far the most difficult bit!
Quality of your CIS data + Quality of DAM data and
asset = high quality digital resource
Phase 2 is still “dream” phase > to be checked
against reality from June onwards.
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Organizational & technical reality
check 2

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A rich digital
resource…
To enrich and inspire…

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‘The painting
comes to me as if
in a dream.’
Vincent van Gogh

51. Case Study Three: Mia
artsmia.org

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53. Art Objects
(TMS)
Digital Media
Assets
(DAMs)
Website
(CMS) Blogs
MobileWeb
Print
(floorplans,
brochures, etc.)
Pubs
(magazines,
Catalogs, books)
Press
(PR, marketing,
news, etc.)
Documents
(reports, plans,
grant apps, policies)
Archive
(library, paper files)
e.g., Social
Media Content
Created: Digital
Stored: Analog
Created: Analog
Stored: Analog
Created: Digital
Stored: Digital
Goal: Integrate/share all content
using open APIs and/or web services
Goal: Store in digital format, with
appropriate access permissions in
metadata Goal: Digitize as needed (no mass-
digitization project); store digital versions
in ECM
ePubs
Digital Art?
Enterprise Content Production, Museum-style
Other
©Douglas Hegley 2015

54. Content
- Object records/metadata
- Constituent records
Potential Content Types
- Maps, charts, diagrams
- LI content
- D& E content (e.g., Verso components
- Etc.
Content Types
- Still images
- Video
- Audio
DAMs
(Open Source)
Enterprise Content Management Ecosystem
Web CMS
DAMs
(Commercial)
Collections Data
(CIS)
MetaMia – Search & Retrieval tool
Index & access
Search/Retrieve
Result set
Filters/Facets
Access: Internal
API
API
API
API
File Shares
(Not in scope)
Potential needs
- Hot folders for auto-ingest
NEW
NEW
NEW
NEW
Funding for the Mia ECM project provided by:
©Douglas Hegley 2015

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Queries across:
1. CIS
2. DAMs1
3. DAMs2
4. Web CMS

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If you build it, they will come. Well, maybe IN THE MOVIES!

57. Date: May 8, 2016 Presentation title 57
At Your Table

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Table Topics – Choose One
1. Implementing and/or driving adoption of DAMs
2. Costs versus aspirations: how to balance
3. Metadata models and standards – best approach?
4. Are DAMs too complex for their own good?
5. DAMs beyond photography: audio, video, multimedia, 3D, VR, etc.
6. CIS & DAMs for collecting institutions: integration & synchronization

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Table Topics – Choose One
1. Implementing and/or driving adoption of DAMs
2. Costs versus aspirations: how to balance
3. Metadata models and standards – best approach?
4. Are DAMs too complex for their own good?
5. DAMs beyond photography: audio, video, multimedia, 3D, VR, etc.
6. CIS & DAMs for collecting institutions: integration & synchronization
Discuss (please assign a notetaker and at least one person to
report)
• Hurdles
• Tips for Success
• Unanswered questions

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Please Share

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Summing Up

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Thank you!Thank you!