digital asset management systems &...

DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS & MUSEUMS:

WHERE WE ARE & WHERE WE GO FROM HERE.

by

Danielle N. Knapp

June 18, 2015

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

in

Museums Studies

in the

Graduate School of Professional Studies

at

John F. Kennedy University

Approved:

_______________________________________ ________________ Adrienne McGraw, Program Chair & Thesis Advisor Date _______________________________________ ________________ Dr. Susan Spero, Thesis Advisor Date

Digital Asset Management Systems & Museums 2

“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Science of Deduction


Table of Contents

Executive Summary………………………………………………………………4

Methodologies..………………………………………………………………….11 Limitations of Methodologies…………………………………………………...16

Literature Review.……………………………………………………………….18 Findings………………………………………………………………………… 36

Conclusions with Recommendations……………………………………………62 Product Description…………………………………………………………...... 78

Reference List……………………………………………………………………81

Appendices Appendix A: Online Survey Questions……………………………………….....88

Appendix B: Interview Questions……………………………………………….91 Appendix C: Interview Contacts………………………………………………...93

Appendix D: Online Survey Results…………………………………...………..94


Executive Summary

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Red Circle

Digital asset management systems (DAMS) are a means to effectively remove

department silos and emancipate hoarded information. DAMS can help build a more

equal and fluid means of information access through their centralized format. For

museums this is the ultimate dream: open access, internally for staff and externally for

the public. This thesis is meant to pinpoint the critical issues or themes every museum

will need to address when implementing a DAMS. Presented here is a compilation of

collected data from existing literature, an online survey with 50 respondents, and 14

in-depth interviews. All of these data-collecting methodologies are used in piecing

together a “snapshot” of the current landscape of implementing a DAMS in a museum.

According to DAMglossary.org, maintained by subject-matter experts, a

“Digital Asset Management System is a term applied to the process of storing,

cataloguing, searching and delivering computer files, known as digital assets”

(http://damglossary.org). “Digital Asset Management Systems provide the means to

manage digital assets from creation to publication and archiving” (NINCH, 2001).

Access is one of several hot-topic issues within the museum field. I believe that with

the use of DAMS, online collection access can become a standard feature for all

museums. This aspect of DAMS gives museums the ability to more completely uphold

their mission and commitment to accessibility for all.

Douglas Brockett, CEO of Exablox, describes museums as having “…unique

requirements – they have extremely valuable digital assets to manage, yet are faced


with tight budgets, limited resources and higher priorities than managing storage”

(Information Technology News Weekly, 2013). The Canadian Heritage Information

Network adds that a museum’s DAM system is meant to integrate best practices within

workflows to improve access to resources and make them available for reuse, in

accordance to museum standards (CHIN, 2013).

A review of the literature concerning DAMS for museums reveals seven main

topics:

What is a DAMS The need for DAMS today A timeline of museums using DAMS & how What are the challenges of DAMS implementation in museums How are vendors becoming responsive to museums’ needs Resources for implementing a DAMS in a museum setting Strategies for implementing a DAMS in a museum setting

There seems to be no singular resource meant specifically for museums to use in their

implementation of a DAM system. Many of the resources are meant for for-profit

companies, or galleries, libraries, archives, museums, collectively known as GLAMs.

While resources tailored toward the GLAM community are valuable to museums,

these resources are broad. Museums have very unique workflows, missions, and

objectives to fulfill.

The goal of my thesis survey was to capture a “snapshot” of the current landscape of

DAMS and museums. The majority of the survey respondents were museum

professionals who have been involved in the implementation of a digital asset

management system or are currently working with a digital asset management system

within a museum setting. The survey results suggest a direct link between the size of

an institution’s annual budget and whether or not it has a DAMS. Fifty-eight percent


of the survey respondents work at an institution with an annual budget greater than

$10,000,001. Only 24% of the respondents had an annual budget ranging between

$1,000,001 to $10,000,000 and only 18% with an annual budget below $1,000,000.

Forty-eight percent of the respondents identified as being an Art Museum,

thirty-four percent of survey respondents identified as being a History Museum and

sixteen percent identified as being a Natural History Museum. The remaining museum

types were identified by survey respondents at a rate of ten percent or less.

The survey reveals the effectiveness of DAMS, showing that it is an essential

part of 79% of the respondents’ workflow, with 65% of respondents using it regularly

throughout the day and 74% saying it has improved their workflow. Overall, 68% of

respondents believe they are extremely likely to recommend a digital asset

management system to other museum professionals or museums.

This project’s interviews captured a deeper dive into the themes and underlying

objectives institutions face as they implement a DAMS. Currently there does not seem

to be one set framework or a clear set of best practices for implementing a DAMS

within a museum setting. What the interviews prove undoubtedly is that museum

systems are akin to fingerprints. There are no two that are identical, which makes it

difficult to ascertain a standard template for installing a DAMS system in museums.

The literature review and findings chapters explore the current landscape of

DAMS used in museums in the United States and Europe. While DAM systems were

not originally built for museums, they are now used as a means of sharing information,

preserving museum collections digitally, and enhancing a museum’s ability to leverage

digital assets internally and externally as a means to more fully complete its mission.


Overall there are ten conclusions that can be drawn from the literature review and

findings chapters.

1. No one-size-fits-all DAMS template or checklist exists for museums.

2. Understanding the need for a DAMS is critical to laying out the framework of

the DAMS.

3. Having key stakeholders onboard for the DAMS project planning is vital to the

longevity of the DAMS.

4. Considering change culture is important in the transition from old workflows to

new workflows.

5. Communicating effectively with museum staff and the vendor is an essential

part of the entire project and needs to continue long after the DAMS is rolled

out.

6. The vendor relationship is a necessity that cannot be ignored.

7. Understanding what resources the museum holds is essential to determine if

trainings or new hires are required for the project.

8. Metadata is the lifeblood of the DAMS project and cannot be underestimated

in value.

9. The policies and standards put in place for the DAMS are essential in

maintaining institutional knowledge and laying out the framework that

supports the DAMS.

10. Evaluating DAMS strengths and weaknesses allows for adjustments and

making the DAMS more efficient. If a museum chooses to switch vendors


these points of strengths and weaknesses could be analyzed and the lessons

learned would pay off.

The theme that ties the above ten conclusions together, and can be drawn from

the literature review and the findings chapters, is access. DAMS permit more access to

the museum’s digital assets both for staff and/or the public. DAMS are a wonderful

discovery tool but require hard work to implement. What the museum puts into the

effort will be what they get from it. It is an equal exchange.

While there is no clear checklist or DAMS template, both the literature review

and the findings chapter point to five key areas museums must focus on: need, scope,

implementation, barriers, and lessons learned from other institutions. Museums must

define their need for a DAMS, which is primarily access. Then they must define the

scope of the DAM project. Once these two foundational decisions have been made, the

implementation phase begins. Implementation most often is a long, tenuous phase

consisting of research, a complete inventory of the digital assets, vendor selection for

the project, forged vendor relationships, migration of assets, the rollout of the DAMS,

and DAMS training for users. A massive amount of work goes into the

implementation of a DAMS.

There are many barriers to consider while planning or implementing a DAMS.

Barriers, as found in the research, could be a small budget, lack of staff, poor vendor

relations, office politics, software issues, or a lack of quality metadata. The lessons-

learned phase is when a museum reflects on the project’s strengths and weaknesses. It

is an essential part of making adjustments to the current system and guiding decisions

if the museum ever chooses to change vendors or upgrade their DAMS.


As I have discovered, there is a loud cry for a singular piece of literature,

which specifically discusses how DAMS can work for museums, what implementing a

DAMS for a museum looks like, and what the long-term needs for a DAMS in a

museum are. Museum professionals want to stop re-inventing the wheel with each new

DAMS project.

The first step in solving this problem is talking with colleges and other

museum professionals about their individual experiences and lessons learned. It is

important to share information and contribute to the DAM conversation either in DAM

groups, or at conferences where DAM is a viable topic. Creating a conversation will

spark professionals to more openly share and exchange experiences and build the

material needed for museum professionals to write literature centered on DAMS

specifically geared to the museum experience, expectation, and needs. Museums are

individualized in their characteristics, needs, and budgets; thankfully so are DAMS.

Like balls of clay DAMS can be massaged into a shape that fits a museum’s individual

requirements. With a little more information, museums could share more of their

collections with the rest of the world and become more efficient internally.

This thesis project reveals that while there is a lot of scattered information

available to museum professionals there is only one resource the museum profession

needs: itself. There is no better substitute than our own experiences and lessons

learned. Communicating those experiences and lessons learned to the field is the single

greatest contribution museum professionals can make. The more we share, the more

we know, and the more the museum field can benefit from a system that could

potentially elevate workflows, create access, and possibly, accelerate museums beyond


their glacial pace and bring them up to speed with the twenty-first century and the

public mindset they are serving.

In my mind, a DAMS is an ecosystem. The more you understand it, the better

you become at tending its needs and in time it can grow into a valuable super resource.

But the less you value its needs the less it will grow or become a valuable resource.

Take care of your DAM ecosystem and it will take care of you.


Methodologies

“I make a point of never having any prejudices, and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me.”

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Reigate Puzzle

This thesis is a compilation of collected data from existing literature, an online

survey with 50 respondents, and 14 in-depth interviews. Each captures the responses

of museum professionals, the majority of whom have been involved in the

implementation of a digital asset management system (DAMS) or are currently

working with a digital asset management system within a museum setting. I chose

these methodologies because I believe each will yield quality data and produce an

exclusive insight into why museums are implementing digital asset management

systems. Overall, the totality of the information I gathered in the literature review was

essential to inform all aspects of my project and has set the guidelines for the online

survey and interviews.

Literature Review

The literature review analysis was composed of books, articles, websites, and

conference proceedings. All of the resources center on DAM technology and the

philosophical ideals surrounding DAMS implementation. The sum of the literature

review outlines the current landscape museum professionals wade through in order to

better understand what the implementation of a DAMS consists of. The literature

review provides an overarching view of:

DAMS definition Need for DAMS today How museums are using DAMS


Challenges of DAMS implementation in museums Vendor responsiveness to museum needs Resources for implementing a DAMS in a museum setting Strategies for implementing a DAMS in a museum setting

Though this research I found that there is a gap in information geared towards

DAMS implementation in museums. A significant segment of the literature used in the

review is not focused on museums, but rather on the general implementation standards

for DAMS in both non-profit and for-profit industries. Through the Canadian Heritage

Information Network, I located “The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital

Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials” (2001), written by

the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII), University

of Glasgow, and the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH).

The NINCH Guide gave insight to how many libraries, universities, image

departments, and others have organized for the implementation of a DAMS. The gap I

found is that there were very few museums that took part in the NINCH Guide case

study. The museums that did participate in the study unfortunately did not participate

as an entire entity but only as single departments within those museums.

Once I began looking more specifically for literature on DAMS in museums I

found very little information; consequently the search widened to include international

museum policy documents. I found Collections Trust, which led me to Nick Poole and

Alex Dawson’s publication, “Spectrum Digital Asset Management” (2013). Spectrum,

an open, freely available collections standard, was created to support galleries,

libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) as they developed DAMS for their

organizations. I found that while “Spectrum Digital Asset Management” is thorough in


its analysis it does focus more broadly on DAMS so that GLAM organizations can

refer to it. Spectrum is a based out of the United Kingdom and was created in

association with Collection Trust, a government-funded entity.

Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC) secured a $675,000 National

Leadership Grant to support building out a DAM system for 10 institutions in one

year. BPOC addresses technological problems at 27 arts and culture organizations in

San Diego’s Balboa Park (Cherry, 2010). Howard Goldstein and Perian Sully’s “10

Museums, 12 Months, 1 DAMS: Adventures in Centralized Systems at Balboa Park,”

describes the implementation process of the projects and provides a blueprint for other

organizations to refer to (2012) – a valuable piece of literature for museums

implementing a DAMS.

Overall, the totality of the information I gathered was useful in informing all

aspects of my project and set the guidelines for the online survey and interviews. My

goal was to create a product that can be tailored specifically to museums and their

needs. The online survey and interviews provided data about how each participating

museum is implementing their own DAMS, along with their goals, challenges, and

lessons learned about those systems.

Survey

The online survey, “DAMS & Museums,” was conducted as an anonymous

sixteen-question survey. It was created and hosted using the Survey Monkey Internet

survey service and was live from the end of February to the end of March 2015. The

survey was posted directly to the LinkedIn American Alliance of Museums group page


and the Museum Computer Network (MCN) group page. Additionally, the survey was

sent out to the Museum Computer Network (MCN) email listserv as well as the

ImageMuse email listserv. Specifically, this survey was intended for museum

professionals, in the United States and Europe, who had participated in the planning,

implementation, and maintenance of their institution’s DAMS, or museum

professionals who use a DAMS as part of their day-to-day tasks. Of those who

responded, 74% had used a DAMS, and 26% had not.

The survey questions were created to obtain the following from each

respondent: the type of museum they work for, the annual budget of the museum, their

personal definition of what a DAMS is, if they are currently working on a DAMS, how

often they use a DAMS in their day-to-day job tasks, their satisfaction with the

DAMS, and if they would recommend DAMS to other museums or museum

professionals. At the end of the survey respondents had the opportunity to leave their

name, contact information, state, and museum if they wished to take part in an in-

depth interview. A total of 17 survey respondents left their information for an

interview. Of the seventeen, fourteen were able to participate in an interview. Please

refer to Appendix A for the full list of survey questions and Appendix C for the full

list of interviewees.

The survey results were coded numerically for analysis and summarized by the

frequency of response types for each question. The majority of the survey was

multiple choice with one open-ended question and several yes/no question types.


Interviews

Interviews were a research method used in this thesis project to better

understand why museums choose to implement a DAMS, what the goals of the system

are, the costs associated with the system, the lessons learned from implementing that

system, and the long-term sustainability of that system. Additionally, I looked to

pinpoint the critical objectives of what it means to implement a DAMS and how to

gauge the success of that DAMS.

Nine interviews were conducted over the phone and five were conducted via e-

mail. Interviews would last between 40 and 50 minutes if they were conducted over

the phone. If interviewees wanted to participate via e-mail due to their busy schedules

I sent them the same questions I used in the phone interviews. I used a standard set of

24 questions for all of the interviews. Interviewees were chosen because they left their

information at the end of the survey and wanted to participate further or were selected

individually due to their professional backgrounds and depth of knowledge focused on

DAMS in museums. The interview questions are listed in Appendix B.


Limitations of Methodologies

“Before we start to investigate, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.”

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Priory School

The scope of this project is to explore the critical objectives needed to

implement a DAMS in a museum and how to gauge the overall success of the DAMS.

I will examine the steps needed to assess a museum’s needs, the tools to address those

needs, the lessons learned, and the long-term goals for the system once in place. Due

to the broad scope of literature available for this topic, I have chosen to limit my

research to the implementation of digital asset management systems specifically in

museums. Therefore, I will not discuss the integrated features of a DAM system.

These features include museum collections or content management systems,

educational software, collection image digitization, photographing collection objects,

scanning equipment, or additional software like Adobe Bridge. While these can all be

integrated as features, they are outside of the scope of this project.

I will not discuss the specific database programming for DAMS, as that is a

large topic beyond the present discussion. Additionally I will not talk about the current

vendors available for museums to use. There is a large amount of information

available about vendors through their own websites and with the MCN Digital Asset

Management Special Interest Group (DAM SIG) (mcn.edu/community/special-

interest-groups-sigs/digital-asset-management-dam-sig/).

Instead, the survey gauges what types of museums are currently using DAMS

and in what capacity. The survey attempts to draw out the average amount of time it


takes for an institution to install a DAMS and why museums choose to implement a

DAMS. There are limitations in the experience levels and expertise of the survey

respondents and interviewees which are outside my control. Additionally, the

organization each museum professional is associated with is outside my control. The

type of museum, size of each museum, and budget of each museum that participates is

outside my control. Furthermore, the survey size is limited and will not reflect the

museum field as a whole, but instead will suggest patterns.

Another limitation is in the rapidly changing nature of technology. My

investigation represents how the field is using the technology today. I cannot assume

how the technology will change in the future or the implications that change will have

on the museum field.

Finally, there are findings from the literature review, survey, and interviews

that will require further investigation. These topics include funding, IT staff training,

data ingestion, and metadata policies for museum DAMS. While all are worth

pursuing on their own, they are beyond the scope of this project.


Literature Review

“I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit fact.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia

This literature review is meant to better understand the nature of digital asset

management systems (DAMS). Further, I will explore how and why museums are

using DAMS and the benefits and challenges these systems create. Are there

established guidelines for implementing DAMS in a museum? The literature review is

meant to draw out resources that focus on the implementation of DAMS in museums.

To put it playfully, I am just trying to find out what the DAM fuss is all about and to

pinpoint the critical objectives museums are using to implement a DAMS.

The main topics in this chapter are: the definition of a DAMS; the need for

DAMS today; why museums are using DAMS; the history of use in museums; vendor

responsiveness to museums’ DAM needs; strategies for implementing DAMS in

museums; resources for implementing DAMS in museums; and the challenges of

DAMS implementation in museums.

What is a DAMS?

According to DAMglossary.org, maintained by subject matter experts,

“Digital Asset Management System is a term applied to the process of storing,

cataloguing, searching and delivering computer files, known as digital assets”

(http://damglossary.org). This system includes both the computer software and

hardware used for storing digital assets which “provide the means to manage digital

assets from creation to publication and archiving” (NINCH, 2001).


Digital assets are the content held in a file. These assets could be images, office

documents, videos, audio, fonts, 3D models, and so on. Think of files as cubbies.

These cubbies are used to organize or group information. The cubby itself is not

valuable but the content held inside of it is. A DAMS uses a centralized system to

organize an institution’s digital assets into one searchable repository. DAMS allow an

organization to customize how assets are ingested, managed, and used on a regular

basis. If maintained properly, a DAMS can make it very simple for staff to locate and

understand how an asset can or cannot be used (http://damglossary.org). According to

the Journal of Financial Planning, “…effective DAM systems require standardized

practices surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloging, storage, retrieval and

distribution of digital assets” (Hopkins, Lipin, & Whitharn, 2014). When a museum

uses its DAM system to maintain how digital assets are cataloged, stored, retrieved,

and distributed, it is also preserving the transfer of institutional knowledge by

standardizing the process of retrieving its assets. The Canadian Heritage Information

Network adds that a museum’s DAM system is meant to integrate best practices within

workflows to improve access to resources and make them available for reuse, in

accordance to museum standards (CHIN, 2013).

Many museums are using digital asset management systems as a solution to

enable effective workflow by better managing their digital assets. DAMS allow staff

to:

• Provide access to digital assets • Decrease duplicate digital assets • Store digital assets in a singular repository • Maintain metadata management & standards • Enhance workflow


These functions enable staff to be successful in completing their day-to-day work in a

more timely manner.

There is little scholarship focusing specifically on DAMS before 2005. DAMS

were not originally intended for non-profit organizations but rather for global

corporations and were originally branded as a means to allow businesses to grow

without increasing, or only slightly increasing, their overhead (Weinstein, 2005). In

2005 the Journal of Digital Asset Management was publishing articles that questioned

what DAMS were or were not (Ljungberg, 2005); what they could be in the future but

were not in the present (Davis, 2005); and how the second generation of DAM systems

would be leaps and bounds ahead of the first generation (Weinstein, 2005). Such

articles called attention to the pitfalls of the first generation of DAMS as being “the

disappointment of multi-million dollar investments failing to fully achieve their

ambitious Return On Investment (ROI) targets” (Weinstein, 2005).

At this time, vendors were claiming DAMS would save companies money by

streamlining tasks (Weinstein, 2005). Additionally, this efficiency would make

customers happier because they would receive consistent services due to the

streamlined workflow. Clearly, DAM vendors themselves were still trying to make

sense of the technology, figure out how to use it to its fullest capacity, and most of all,

how to explain why it was good for all businesses to have (Ljungberg, 2005).

The Need for DAMS Today

The problems DAMS were designed to solve a decade ago are very similar to

the problems they are still being used to solve today. How do you make your images,


documents, videos, or audio files easily accessible to staff? How do you make the use

rights of a digital asset clear to staff, clients, and the public (Watts, 2005)? However, a

DAMS may not be needed to manage a museum’s digital assets. There are many

museums who presently operate well without one (Hopkins, Lipin, & Whitharn, 2014).

For instance, a museum marketing department could have a large collection of digital

images consisting of headshots, stock photographs, company logos, and other images

types, which they have created for publication and press releases for various events.

The museum graphic designer could store all of his files on his computer’s desktop;

the museum photographer manages her files using Flickr; and the museum art director

stores everything she approves in a folder on the museum’s server. Because each

museum staff person has their own personal “system” for locating and retrieving their

files, each staff person is effectively managing their digital assets. Unfortunately, this

example showcases the museum’s inability to manage its digital assets as one succinct

collection. While each individual manages the digital assets they use, the museum is

unaware of each personal system of maintaining, tracking, storing, and archiving

digital assets.

The initial need or desire for a DAMS seems to come from the aspiration to

enhance a museum’s ability to preserve and share institutional knowledge in a way

that is accessible, secure, and reliable. The desire for a museum DAMS may be born

out of departmental silos of hoarded information distributed by singular or exclusive

gatekeepers. Museum staff need to receive digital assets more quickly in order to

improve workflows and access , thereby enabling them to work more efficiently,

independently, and collaboratively.


By clarifying the use rights associated with each asset, DAMS can increase the

amount of useable material available to a museum’s staff. For instance, if all of the

images from a museum’s collections and archives are on the DAMS with the

associated copyright and license agreements listed clearly in the metadata of each

image, then more departments can use the assets more easily and appropriately.

Furthermore, all digital assets have a value allocated to their content, which can

translate to a potential source of revenue for an organization (McLaren, 2005). This

value might come from not having to purchase images from Getty Images when

creating new exhibit graphics because the exhibit staff has access to similar usable

digital assets available in the museum’s DAMS. Digital asset content value comes

from the ability to index and access the asset. Value could also be a price tag

associated with downloading or printing a digital asset for external users such as

private clients or the public.

The benefit of DAMS can come simply from the need for a solution to more

effectively share digital assets with all departments for a range of uses. Digital assets

have value and multiple uses. Leveraging those assets can lead to improved

workflows, a larger amount of available content, and positive long-term outcomes for

museums.

Why Museums are Using DAMS

There is a simultaneous need for both internal and external DAMS capabilities.

With the rise of the Internet came a new type of museum visitor, the virtual visitor.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) completed a survey focusing on


museums digitizing as a means of creating access both internally and externally to

their collections and digital assets. In 2002 only 6.1% of the survey respondents

identified better access to collections as their motivation for digitizing. In 2005, this

number had risen to 56% (Cf. Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2002 &

2005). The shift from a physical to a digital relationship with objects sparked some

institutions to investigate how they could more effectively deliver digital versions of

objects to their visitors. Between 2004 and 2006 some of the United States’ most

renowned museums began implementing their own DAMS. These museums included

the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art, as well as many

smaller institutions like the Center for Creative Photography at the University of

Arizona (Waibel, 2006).

In 2007 the global market for digital asset management solutions was over

$330 million and was predicted to reach more than a billion within the next five years

(Lamont, 2008). The increased value in managing digital assets for any for-profit or

non-profit organization was becoming inherently clear. The Museum of Modern Art

(MoMA) implemented its DAM system as a way to streamline workflow, manage

intellectual property and digital rights, and generate revenue from the purchase of

posters, flyers, and so on (Lamont, 2008). Whether a museum is using DAMS for

internal management of digital assets or to share digital assets externally online with

the public, a DAMS is capable of supporting both.


History of Use in Museums

In 2008, the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) held the Digital

Asset Symposium at The MoMA. The symposium was created specifically to discuss

the challenges of managing digital assets throughout their entire life cycles. While the

symposium did not focus on one specific industry standard, it was meant to give a

larger perspective to how digital assets could be better managed for cultural, historical,

and educational purposes (Gibson, 2008).

CMS Watch conducted its own six-month research project in 2008, which

assessed the overall DAMS market. The research was made up of interviews with

everyday users of DAMS to see if the product was meeting the basic needs of the

organization. The results indicated that the DAMS industry had made improvements

and was maturing. Clients who were dissatisfied with their product could “…trace

their problem to an inadequate and/or unstructured technology selection and

implementation process” (Regli, 2009). Implementing a successful DAM system does

not mean fulfilling a long list of check-box requirements. Instead it requires a

methodical review process based on the actual DAM system and aggressive usability

testing (Regli, 2009).

In 2003 the Museum Victoria, in Australia, created an Image Strategy Working

Group, which met once a month and was tasked with formulating a standardized

approach and procedures for the management and access of images and audio-visual

materials in the museum’s care. In 2009 the museum, an early adopter of this

technology, launched its first DAM system. The Museum Victoria consists of three

museums: Scienceworks; the Immigration Museum; and the Melbourne Museum; all


of which are responsible for the nation’s scientific and cultural collections

(Broomfield, 2009). The DAMS is significant in this instance because it helps fulfill

the Museum Victoria’s need to formulate a standardized approach and procedures for

management and accessing images and audio-visual materials in the museum’s care

across its disparate collections.

In 2011 the use of DAMS in museums became more prevalent as more and

more museums began to share their digital collections online with the public.

Museums were using DAMS as a tool to maintain control of their digital collections,

which was becoming as crucial as the management of the museum’s physical

collections (Green, 2011).

The trend of using a DAM system to create increased public access to a

museum’s collection continued. In 2012 the Balboa Park Online Collaborative brought

together 10 separate museums and created a single DAMS in 12 months. The DAMS

was designed specifically to support each of the ten museums’ digital assets so they

could be accessed online through a singular DAMS. It’s a daunting task for one

museum to implement its own DAMS, let alone 10 separate museums to do in a single

year (Goldstein & Sully, 2012). The Balboa Park Online Collaborative DAMS was

built to give educators access to the collections online to provide materials for lesson

plans. Additionally the DAMS would give all virtual visitors access to peruse the

digital collection. Virtual museum visitors are a clear trend in the museum industry at

this point.

Piction, the vendor Balboa Park Online Collaborative used to launch its

DAMS, used a new storage solution called Exablox’s plug-and-play. Exablox would


allow museums to have a simple DAMS and backup solutions that grow as the

museum expands its digital collections. Essentially, the Exablox plug-in OneBlox

allows museums the tool to operate as if they were an enterprise DAM without the

associated price tag of an enterprise solution. OneBlox is a cloud-based management

service that provides security and storage for DAM systems at fraction of the usual

cost. Douglas Brockett, CEO of Exablox, describes museums as having, “…unique

requirements – they have extremely valuable digital assets to manage, yet are faced

with tight budgets, limited resources and higher priorities than managing storage.”

OneBlox has allowed Piction to sell secure and storage-robust products tailored

specifically to museums’ need to get their content out and available for public digital

display (Information Technology News Weekly, 2013).

Since the early 2000s museums continue to prioritize the digitization of their

collections, which has created a demand for managing their digital assets more

efficiently in order to provide storage, security, and access to both staff and the public.

The rise of the virtual visitor has had a significant impact on museums as well. Digital

asset management systems are a tool museums are using to help satisfy their staffs’

and virtual visitors’ appetites to explore, share, and experience museum collections.

There is no clear data that suggest how many museums have a DAMS in the United

States.

Vendor Responsiveness to Museums’ DAM Needs

Initially, DAMS vendors were accustomed to working with for-profit business

standards, not cultural heritage best practices. These hired companies built the


software, managed the systems, made adjustments, and managed licensing. In 2014

many museums announced their upgrades of a current DAMS or initiated the process

of selecting a new DAMS (MENA Report, 2014; Wireless New, 2014; Investment

Weekly News, 2014). As a result, vendors were asked to allow increased access to

digital assets in order to fulfill museums’ mission statements rather than to increase the

organization’s revenue stream.

Museums require a set of metadata standards that support collections and

vendors needed to create standards for metadata that were outside the scope of typical

business practices. Currently, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and Visual Resources

Association are working to achieve a viable solution for museum metadata. Museums

may not have been the target consumers for DAMS vendors but now they can

advocate for their own needs by better understanding their specific goals, standards,

and procedures, and formulating clear expectations for their DAM system.

Additionally, in museums’ favors, as all technologies advance, their costs come down.

Over time, as the cost of DAMS drops and the tools for effective systems become

more readily available, more museums transition to DAMS to manage their

collections, business, marketing, education materials, and so on.

Strategies for Implementing DAMS in Museums

When considering implementing a DAM system there is a massive amount of

information an organization can consider, and there are several steps to follow to

ensure a stable foundation to build its DAMS upon for long-term success. According

to Daniel Noonan, author of “Digital Preservation Policy Framework: A Case Study,”


these steps include drafting a purpose, mandate, objectives, scope, challenges,

principles, roles and responsibilities, collaboration, selection and acquisition, access

and use, references, glossary, review cycle, and implementation strategies. By creating

objective statements which frame how a DAM system will be implemented, an

institution demonstrates organizational commitment through the identification of

sustainable strategies (Noonan, 2014).

The common factor that continually reoccurs in DAM implementations across

various organizations or businesses is the pinpointing of the system’s main goal.

Decision makers need to ask themselves questions such as: What are our digital

assets? What is our metadata model(s)? What is our taxonomy? What considerations

has our organization made for any possible workflow issues? What policies does our

organization have in place for the digital preservation of assets? How are we handling

any licensing or legal issues? What vendor should our organization use? Are there

presently any management issues that may conflict with the DAM implementation

(Horodyski, 2011)?

The solution for implementing a DAM system in any museum seems be

imbedded in an organization’s ability to first educate itself on why it needs a DAM

system. As the research and planning for that system takes place, the organization

works towards educating its staff on what a DAM system is and why it is needed.

Finally, essential for the longevity of the DAMS, is the requirement for the museum to

incorporate a new work culture centered specifically on integrating the use of the

DAM in each staff member’s everyday work tasks. Collections Trust lays out ten steps


to achieve a successful DAM, all of which focus on the culture change and creating or

building a museum community during the transition to a DAM system.

Step one is to simply go around and talk with staff and colleagues to find out

how they use digital assets in their day-to-day workflow. Step two focuses on creating

use-cases to specifically identify the many ways a digital asset is used in the museum.

Step three consists of auditing a museum’s entire system. What types of digital assets

are the staff using, where are they being stored, and what software is staff using to

manage those assets (http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/about-us)?

Step four consists of identifying the key stakeholders at the museum. These are

people that will either be for or against a museum DAM and they are the people you

want supporting and advocating the implementation of the DAMS. Step five is to talk

with your vendor. What elements of your current system can work with the DAMS?

This allows for staff to have the systems they understand and feel comfortable with

and can make it easier to obtain support for the transfer to a DAM system. Step six is

to develop a business case to show how the DAM system connects to the museum’s

mission and purpose. Without this the DAMS is meaningless to an institution.

Additionally, the business case should include the cost associated with implementing

the DAMS and the estimated return on investment

(http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/about-us).

Step seven is to create an official plan that lays out milestones and

opportunities for staff to give input. Make this plan very visible throughout the

museum. Step eight is the roll-out phase. It is advised that roll-out happen in small

increments and not be rushed. Many roll-outs attempt to do too much too fast and


result in failure. Step nine is to integrate DAM policies and procedures into staff work

flow. Writing new role descriptions for staff members is often helpful. Finally, step ten

is to build a community. DAMS create a lot of change and creating an active

community of stakeholders to positively support and give continual direction is critical

to the longevity of a DAMS (http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/about-us).

What are the Challenges of DAMS Implementation in Museums

According to the literature there are several issues that occur while working

towards implementing a DAM system in museums. The first is that implementing a

DAMS can be very disruptive and impacts many or all museum departments. The

DAMS also requires that all of the museum staff be held to the same stringent policies

and framework put in place for the DAM system. Such large-scale changes in

workflow policy and procedure can cause confusion and frustration within an

institution’s work culture. Additionally, the implementation of DAMS can create new

working relationships between departments that may have never collaborated before

(Chun & Jenkins, 2006).

“Change is not because it’s shiny, new, or cool, but needed for increased

effectiveness and efficiency across the organization,” writes de Goyor (2013).

However, change is hard and seen to cause inconvenience (Diamond, 2012). Users

want to feel instant gratification for their work. As Diamond (2012) offers:

Digital Asset Management is like dental floss. With daily use,

the long-term benefits are significant… DAM and flossing share


another misfortune in that the full benefits they offer aren’t

realized immediately. In fact, going through the motions of

managing digital assets (digital flossing) is often inconvenient

and tedious, at best… The employees of an organization can be

compared to kids. No matter how many times Mom tries to

explain why flossing is important, Xbox is always more fun.

Even if the world’s coolest dentist was to explain how great the

long-term benefits of flossing will be, Facebook offers benefits

today (Diamond, 2012).

Understanding change management strategies is a significant piece of the DAM

puzzle. Staff buy-in becomes essential for the implementation and long-term success

of any DAMS.

The second challenge for implementation of a DAMS, depending on

institutional goals, is to ensure museum staff can more efficiently fulfill both in-house

and external access to digital assets (Waibel, 2006). The third issue is accepting that

the integration of various museum systems (such as collection management or digital

rights) is an absolute necessity. Another challenge is staff and public acceptance of

the new DAMS. A DAMS will only provide long-term accessibility to the digital files

if it is used by museum staff and if applicable the general public (Waibel, 2006).

Challenges also exist in a broader sense. While the capabilities of DAMS

continue to evolve in order to facilitate the connections needed between the physical

and digital worlds, DAMS may not be the best solution for all museums. Questions


remain about the future of DAMS implementations in museums, such as why haven’t

any of these pioneer museums been able to achieve an end-to-end solution?

Another broad question for the field is how to format intellectual property

policies. At an institutional level, this question has implications for who decides what

staff can use digital assets, and what digital assets the public can see. What is the

purpose of external access to a museum’s digital assets? “…[Is] it to profit from the

licensing of images or [is] it to support an educational mandate for broader

distribution?” (Chun & Jenkins, 2006)

Digital asset policies are complex and when considering implementing a DAM

system the main objective is to first create a technical infrastructure in order to

maximize the quality of the DAMS. What have museums established as their own

DAMS standards or best practices? Of course, DAMS were not created as a

technology designed specifically for museums’ needs. Yet as DAMS vendors continue

to work with museums the relationship between physical and digital assets all being

accounted for in one central system has become plausible.

Resources for Implementing a DAMS in Museums

The main documents that have been put together to assist museums in better

understanding and implementing DAMS are: Collections Trust’s “10 Steps to a Digital

Asset Management Strategy for your Museum” and the accompanying text “Spectrum

Digital Asset Management”; “Digital Asset Management: Where to Start” by Megan

McGovern; and “The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation

and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials.” All four support best practices for


integrating digital assets into a museum’s workflow in order to better support a

museum’s mission or vision. All four focus on the core aspects of implementing a

DAMS.

The Collections Trust is a UK-based professional association for collection

management and it works worldwide with galleries, libraries, archives, and museums

(GLAMs) to improve management and use of collections through building

professional standards, workforce development, advocacy, and governance

(http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/about-us). In addition to its ten steps for achieving

a successful DAM, discussed above, it also published, with support from the Arts

Council England, the accompanying text “Spectrum Digital Asset Management,” a

guide to integrating DAMS with preexisting collections management practices. The

document is updated to reflect evolving changes in current practices. “Spectrum

DAM” clearly states that it is not a standard of formal requirements but rather

suggestions or recommendations to consider (Dawson & Poole, 2013). The document

is free and available for anyone to download and use and offers five elements to a

successful DAMS, including:

• Why and how DAM can benefit your organization • Developing a DAM strategy • Integrating DAM alongside your existing SPECTRUM-based

collection practices • Developing and communicating DAM policies for your organization • Procuring and implementing a DAMS (Dawson & Poole, 2013).

Echoing the need to organize the goals, standards, and procedures of a museum

DAMS is “The NINCH Guide to Good Practices in the Digital Representation and

Management of Cultural Heritage Materials.” The NINCH guide discusses five key


areas that need to be fully outlined according to the specific needs of the museum.

Theses five areas are:

• File management • Metadata definition and management • Workflow • Policy making and enforcement • Access (NINCH, 2002)

The last document, published in Curator: The Museum Journal in 2013, is

titled “Digital Asset Management: Where to Start” (McGovern, 2013). It outlines the

framework used to support the creation of the Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG)

DAMS, including the standards, tasks, and key decision points. It outlines a case study

of the DAMS implementation at the CMoG and the lessons learned from the

implementation. Similarly, like the other three documents highlighted above, it not

only emphasizes the key aspects of implementation but also the resources the CMoG

consulted to obtain their standards for best practices. These resources focus on

digitization and include publications from The American Library Association, The

Smithsonian Institution, Canadian Heritage Information Network, Western States

Digital Standards Group, California Digital Library, Cornell University Library, and

many more (McGovern, 2013). Library-based resources suggest having a Masters in

Library and Information Sciences (MLIS) member(s) on the core DAMS planning and

implementing team would be a smart strategy. MLIS personnel are trained specifically

to analyze and organize data using a big picture lens (Tadic, 2005).


Conclusions

DAMS are tools that allow staff the ability to access digital assets, decrease

duplicates, store data in a single central repository, maintain metadata, and enhance

workflows (CHIN 2013). The need for DAMS in museums is driven by the increasing

need for better access to collections for both staff and public (Institute of Museum and

Library Services, 2002 & 2005). However, while there is an array of information

available about DAMS in general, there seems to be a gap in information solely

focused on museum DAM strategy, methodology, and best practices (if there are any).

DAMS may have been built originally to enhance business in the for-profit sector but

in the last decade DAMS have been molded to the needs and requirements of cultural

heritage institutions around the world. The key to unlocking the future potential of

DAMS in museums is to continue to investigate best practices and policies, talk about

lessons learned, and push forward toward a better understood DAMS solution for

museums.

In the next chapter, I will present the results from an anonymous online survey

that gathered fifty respondents and fourteen in-depth interviews with museum digital

asset managers or specialists from small and large institutions across the United States

and in Europe.


Findings

“Data! Data! Data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay." – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Speckled Band

The findings section offers focus on the results from an anonymous online

survey that gathered fifty respondents and fourteen in-depth interviews with museum

digital asset managers or specialists from small and large institutions across the United

States and Europe. See Appendices A and B for a detailed overview of the survey and

interview questions, respectively, and Appendix C for the list of interviewees and their

affiliations.

The goal of the online survey, completed on the Survey Monkey Internet site,

was to capture a “snapshot” of the current landscape of DAMS and museums. What

types of museums are using DAMS? Is there a link between the size of an institution’s

annual budget and whether or not they have a DAMS? How long is it taking

institutions to implement their DAMS? What is the average age of DAM systems?

What is the overall opinion of the effectiveness of a DAMS at the survey respondent’s

organization? Is it an important part of day-to-day work flows? Most importantly, why

are museums implementing DAMS?

The structured phone and e-mail interviews were used to dive deeper into the

issues museums face as they implement DAMS. I sought to find answers to: How are

museums implementing DAMS at their institution? Is there any perceived standard of

best practices to do so or is implementing a DAMS like venturing out into the final

frontier?


Online Survey Results

The “Digital Asset Management Systems & Museum” survey was open for 25

days, from February 25, 2015 to March 21, 2015, and was completely anonymous.

The survey was posted to the LinkedIn discussion pages of the American Alliance of

Museums and the Museum Computer Network (MCN). The survey was also sent out

to the ImageMuse email list serve and MCN email list serve. The survey collected 50

responses. See Appendix A for a full list of the Online Survey Questions and

Appendix D for the Online Survey Results. The first portion of the survey, questions

1-3, was completed by all 50 survey respondents and captured the types of museums

survey respondents work in, the annual budget of the museums the respondent works

for, and how each respondent individually defined a DAMS. Figure 1 shows the types

of museums that respondents work for.


Figure 1. The bar graph displays survey respondents’ place of work.

Survey respondents could choose any number of museum types to best

describe their institution. Keeping this in mind while looking at the data displayed in

Figure 1, almost half of the respondents, 48%, identified as an art museum. About a

third of the respondents, 34%, identified as a history museum and 16% identified as a

natural history museum. The top three museum types respondents identified with

resulted in a sum of 49 selections. The remaining museums types, anthropology,

science or technology, specialized museum (e.g., railroad, music, aviation), botanical

garden, children’s museum, zoological park, nature center, and aquarium, accounted

for 21 selections from survey respondents. Respondents selected a total of 70 museum

types.

48% 34%

16% 10% 10% 10%

4% 0% 2%

0% 6%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Art Museum History Museum

Natural History Museum Anthropology Museum Science or Technology

Specialized Museum Botanical Garden

Children's Museum Zoological Park

Nature Center Aquarium

What type of museum do you work for? Check all that apply.

N = 50 50


Figure 2. The pie chart shows the annual budget of the survey respondents’ museum.

The second question captured the size of each survey respondent’s museum’s

annual budget, as displayed in Figure 2. The question was phrased as, “What range

does your museum’s annual budget fit in?” The results were as follows: 10% or 5

respondents stated their annual budget was less than $250,000. 6% or 3 respondents

stated their annual budget was between $250,0001 - $500,000. 2% or 1 respondent

stated their annual budget was between $500,001 - $1,000,000. 10% or 5 respondents

stated their annual budget was between $1,000,001 - $3,000,000. 6% or 3 respondents

stated their annual budget was between $3,000,001 - $5,000,000. 8% or 4 respondents

stated their annual budget was between $5,000,001 - $10,000,000. Finally, more than

half of the respondents or 29 stated their annual budget was $10,000,001 or more.

The third question was open-ended, asking, “How would you define a Digital

Asset Management System?” The question sought to capture a “snapshot” of how

10%

6% 2%

10%

6%

8%

58%

What range does your museum's annual budget ;it?

$250,000 and under

$250,001 - $500,000

$500,001 - $1,000,000

$1,000,001 - $3,000,000

$3,000,001 - $5,000,000

$5,000,001 - $10,000,000

$10,000,001 and over

N = 50


respondents perceive the purpose of DAMS. The vast majority, 40 of the 50

respondents, summarized the general purpose of a DAMS. Below is a randomly

selected sample of five responses that demonstrate the vast variety of DAMS

definitions currently in the field today. Please note, all DAMS are built to support an

individual organization’s needs and thus a DAMS can take on many different forms.

Responses were kept as originally received and have not been edited or altered in any

way. See Appendix D for all 50 individual responses.

1. “A digital ecosystem that allows users to organize, access, and

archive enterprise assets in a stable and sustainable manner.”

2. “Technology that allows for robust cataloging of a variety of digital

asset types, indexes embedded metadata and serves as a primary

rendition storage system that creates distribution derivatives. Digital

Asset Management Systems help manage administrative, structural, and

descriptive metadata. Cataloging of rights related information,

preservation metadata, and version control are also central concepts to

managing digital assets.”

3. “Software that allows organizations/businesses to organize, search,

retrieve, set permissions, associate metadata, and reduce redundancy for

all their digital assets (text files, image files, sound, video, etc.)”

4. “A searchable catalog that allows staff to access digital assets,

including visual media (videos, art, photos) as well as logos, campaign

art, etc. The system allows information to be stored about each asset,


and an administrator catalogs, curates, and can grant different

permissions to users.”

5. “A system that catalogs digital assets using metadata and keywords

with a variety of customizable functions and allowing for multiple

people/departments access to said assets. For us, we use a Digital Asset

Management system to database our photographic digital assets. We

use an enterprise, expandable system that has both client and web

applications.”

The second portion of the survey, questions 4-5, separated out the respondents

who have or are currently working with a DAMS from those who have not. This was

done by using a built-in logic model in the survey. Those who have or are currently

working with a DAMS participated in the third and final section of the survey. Those

who had not worked with a DAMS were told they had completed the survey and were

thanked for their time.

The fourth question asked, “Does your museum have a DAMS in place?” Of

the 50 survey respondents, 69% or 34 chose “Yes,” as their answer, 18% or 9 chose

“No,” as their answer, 12% or 6 chose “ I do not know” as their answer, and 1

respondent skipped the question. Question 5 asked, “Are you now or have you ever

worked with a digital asset management system?” 74% or 36 respondents selected

“Yes,” 27% or 13 selected “No,” and 1 respondent skipped the question. The 36

survey respondents who selected “Yes” were then asked to complete the third and final

portion of the survey. The 13 who responded, “No,” were told they had completed the

survey. The respondent who skipped the question had left the survey. The third and


final section of the survey had 33 respondents choose to continue. The findings

reported from here on reflect those 33 who reported familiarity with DAMS, and not

the original 50 respondents.

Figure 3. The graph depicts why survey respondents’ museums considered DAMS.

Question number six was meant to draw out what types of problems museums

were attempting to solve with implementing a DAMS. The question was phrased as,

“Why did your museum consider a DAMS? Check all that apply.” See Figure 3 for

To enhance work 9low

To secure all digital assets in one place

To enable staff to more easily access information

To cut costs

To more effectively manage copyright

To allow more access to the museum's archives

To minimize duplications of assets

To enhance metadata

For collection management

For educational purposes

For all departments

For the museum website

I do not know

Other (please specify)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Why did your museum consider a DAMS? Check all that apply.

N = 33


results. Of the 33 respondents, 85% or 28 selected, “To enable staff to more easily

access information.” 73% or 24 respondents selected, “To enhance work flow.” 73%

or 24 respondents selected, “To minimize duplications of assets.” 70% or 23

respondents selected, “To secure all digital assets in one place.” 58% or 19

respondents selected, “To enhance metadata.” 58% or 19 respondents selected, “For

all departments.” 55% or 18 respondents selected, “To allow more access to the

museum’s archives.” 55% or 18 respondents selected, “For the museum website.” 49%

or 16 respondents selected, “To more effectively manage copyright.” 45% or 15

respondents selected, “For collection management.” 33% or 11 respondents selected,

“For educational purposes.” 12% or 4 respondents selected, “To cut costs.” 6% or 2

respondents selected, “I do not know.” 12% or 4 respondents selected “Other” and

specified as followed:

1. “Did not check the copyright box because that is not why we initially considered and implemented a DAM, however we are now planning to further develop its rights management capabilities.”

2. “Centralize image management.” 3. “Museum website being a museum consortia site.” 4. “Used Sharepoint as a DAM substitute at previous museum. Not at

current museum.”

The seventh question asked, “About how long did it take to install your

museum’s DAMS?” Of the 33 respondents, 21% or 7 selected, “Less than a year.” 12%

or 4 respondents selected, “About a year.” 30% or 10 respondents selected, “About 2

years.” 6% or 2 respondents selected, “About 3 years.” 3% or 1 respondent selected,

“About 4 years.” 3% or 1 respondent selected, “About 5 years.” 6% or 2 respondents

selected, “Over 6 years.” 18% or 6 respondents selected, “I do not know.”


The eighth question asked, “About how long has your DAMS been installed?”

Of the 33 respondents, 21% or 7 selected, “Less than a year.” 6% or 2 respondents

selected, “About a year.” 9% or 3 respondents selected, “About 2 years.” 6% or 2

respondents selected, “About 3 years.” 9% or 3 respondents selected, “About 4 years.”

3% or 1 respondent selected, “About 5 years.” 33% or 11 respondents selected, “Over

6 years.” 12% or 4 respondents selected, “I do not know.”

The ninth question was phrased, “How many departments use the DAMS?” Of

the 33 respondents, 27% or 9 selected, “All museum departments.” 33% or 11

respondents selected, “Many museum departments.” 18% or 6 respondents selected,

“A few museum departments.” 15% or 5 respondents selected, “Only one museum

department.” 6% or 2 respondents selected, “I do not know.” There were no

respondents who chose the option of “None.”

The tenth question asked, “Is the DAMS an essential part of your workflow?”

Of the 33 respondents 79% or 26 answered “Yes.” 9% or 3 respondents answered

“No.” 12% or 4 respondents answered, “Indifferent.”

The eleventh question asked, “In your opinion, is the DAMS interface user-

friendly?” 31 respondents answered this question. Of the 31 respondents, 6% or 2

selected, “Extremely user-friendly.” 39% or 12 respondents selected, “Quite user-

friendly.” 13% or 4 respondents selected, “Indifferent.” 19% or 6 respondents

selected, “Slightly user-friendly.” 23% or 7 respondents selected, “Not user-friendly.” The twelfth question asked, “How often do you use the DAMS?” 31

respondents answered this question. Of the 31 respondents, 65% or 20 chose,

“Regularly throughout the day.” 16% or 5 respondents chose, “Once a day.” 19% or 6


respondents chose, “A few times a month.” None of the respondents choose “Every

few days,” “Once a week,” or “A few times a year.”

The thirteenth question was meant to gauge if a respondent’s DAMS improved

their workflow. The question was phrased as, “Has the DAMS improved your

workflow?” 31 respondents answered the question. Of the 31 respondents 74% or 23

selected, “Yes.” 16% or 5 respondents choose, “No” and 10% or 3 respondents

choose, “Not sure.”

The fourteenth question used a scale to rate staff acceptance of the DAMS. The

question was phrased, “On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being very low and 5 being very high,

how would you rate staff acceptance of the DAMS?” 31 respondents answered the

question. Of the 31 respondents, 3% or 1 chose to rate staff acceptances as a “1.” 16%

or 5 respondents chose to rate staff acceptances as a “2.” 42% or 13 chose to rate staff

acceptances as a “3.” 16% or 5 respondents chose to rate staff acceptances as a “4.”

23% or 7 respondents chose to rate staff acceptances as a “5.”

The fifteenth and final asked, “How likely is it that you would recommend a

digital asset management system to other museum professionals or museums?” 31

respondents answered the question. Of the 31 respondents 68% or 21 respondents

selected, “Extremely likely.” 16% or 5 respondents selected, “Moderately likely.” 10%

or 3 respondents selected, “Indifferent.” 3% or 1 respondent selected, “Slightly likely.”

3% or 1 respondent selected, “Not at all likely.”


Interview Results

The first interview took place on March 10, 2015 and the last was completed

on April 5, 2015. Interviews took place either by phone or e-mail. All interviewees

were asked the same 24 questions, which can be found in Appendix B. The majority of

interviewees were respondents of the “Digital Asset Management Systems and

Museums” survey (described above) who offered to talk more in-depth about their

experiences. Other interviewees were sought out for their expertise in DAMS. The full

list of interviewees can be found in Appendix C. The interview questions will be

italicized throughout this section of the findings chapter. Each question was meant to

draw out deeper themes discovered in the literature and in my survey, “Digital Asset

Management & Museums.”

The Need for DAMS. First, I wanted to draw out what types of problems

museums are attempting to solve by implementing a DAMS? “Access” was the

unanimous response! Whether that access was for internal use, external use, or both, it

did not matter. Breaking down department silos of hoarded digital assets was the main

priority for the interviewees (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23, 2015;

Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; T. Fullerton, personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015; K. Grace, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015;

J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal correspondence, March 16, 2015; N. Honeysett,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal correspondence,

March 13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Shean,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; T. Young, personal correspondence, March

24, 2015; J. Wells, personal correspondence, March 30, 2015; L. White, personal


correspondence, April 5, 2015; E. Wittenberg, personal correspondence, March 25,

2015; D. Wythe, personal correspondence, March 17, 2015).

For example, Kristen Grace, the Photographer and Digital Asset Manager of

the Florida Museum of Natural History, described the challenge of going from a photo

office dealing only with hard copy archives to digitizing over 150,000 assets in 2000.

The challenge was that those newly digitized assets could not be stored on the

museum’s server because the server did not have the space for the volume of images

the office generated. Additionally, the office continues to generate digital assets and

the file sizes are larger due to the use of pro-level camera equipment. The digital assets

are not sorted on the museum server because the software used to process and

catalogue the images, Adobe Lightroom, does not work off of a shared network or

drive. All of the digital assets, more than a terabyte, are stored on a local Raid Array

(DROBO) and the backup of raw files are kept on a separate server. Thus, the museum

staff were not able to access the digital assets. If staff needed photos, Grace would

need to put together a web gallery according to what they were asking for. If the

photos in the web gallery were not what the staff needed, the only way for them to

search on their own was physically at Grace’s personal computer. Staff would search

quickly through photos, trying not to take too long, and Grace, not able to work at her

computer, would have to find other work.This clunky workflow was all due to a lack

of access to the digital assets the museum had on hand. The museum’s DAMS now

allows images processed in Lightroom to be exported to a server that sends the images

to a web-based searchable database for staff (K. Grace, personal correspondence,

March 19, 2015).


Another interviewee said about accessibility that, “the main goal is to organize

and manage digital surrogates of our collections for internal and external access.” To

be able to more fully access the digital resources the museum holds both internally and

externally furthers a museum’s ability to fulfill its mission (J. Herczeg-Konecny,

personal correspondence, March 16, 2015).

Other common problems of accessibility were the inability to track image use

and licenses (Anonymous, March 24, 2015), the need for individuals to be able to find

assets quickly on their own and in the format required for their task (J. Herczeg-

Konecny, personal correspondence, March 16, 2015; L. White, personal

correspondence, April 5, 2015), the need for a security system which allows users to

see and download only what they require for their tasks or job description (K. Grace,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015), and the need to put the collection online

for the general public to search and view (J. Wells, personal correspondence, March

30, 2015). Overall these issues point to a need for improved workflows and sharing

capabilities (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23, 2015).

Assessing Needs. Once a museum knows it could benefit from a DAMS, what

tools are employed to pinpoint the museum’s exact needs? Interviewees who

participated in their museum’s needs assessment agreed on five essential steps:

1. Talk with the key stakeholders to understand what they want versus what their immediate needs require.

2. Audit or conduct a complete inventory of digital assets used in each department.

3. Conduct interviews, workshops, or questionnaires to understand how staff use, store, and back up assets.

4. Understand what the current workflow issues are. 5. Request for proposal (RFP) writing and evaluation.


(Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23, 2015; Anonymous, personal


S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Shean, personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015; L. White, personal correspondence, April 5, 2015;

E. Wittenberg, personal correspondence, March 25, 2015; D. Wythe, personal

correspondence, March 17, 2015.)

How are museums researching DAMS once their most critical needs are

specified? Many museums first look at what their institutional limitations might be and

how these can be addressed throughout the entire process. For instance, a university

museum must meet the IT requirements established by the university (K. Grace,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015). One interviewee said that they formed a

group or coalition which, “…reviewed each system against various criteria [the

museum] had drawn up” (S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015).

All interviewees who participated in researching DAMS read books, blogs,

articles, and white papers; listened to podcasts; participated in webinars; and attended

conferences in order to better understand and review the different vendor products

presented to them as viable options for their museums. Interviewees also talked to

other museum professionals who had implemented a DAMS at their institution

(Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; T. Fullerton, personal


S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Shean, personal




correspondence, March 17, 2015).

Implementation. What are the compositions of the core-teams implementing

DAMS? Of the 14 interviewees 11 had been part of the museum’s core-team to

research and implement a DAMS. Core-teams ranged in size from 1 to 15 people.

Almost all had at least one server administrator, director of technology, or IT specialist

on the core-team. The rights and reproduction manager, collection manager, chief

curator, and library and archives managers were all common core-team members

(Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23, 2015; Anonymous, personal

correspondence, March 24, 2015; T. Fullerton, personal correspondence, March 19,

2015; K. Grace, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Herczeg-Konecny,


March 13, 2015; J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Wells,

personal correspondence, March 30, 2015; L. White, personal correspondence, April

5, 2015; E. Wittenberg, personal correspondence, March 25, 2015; D. Wythe, personal


How long is implementation taking in general? All of the interviewees are at

various stages of planning, currently implementing, or have fully implemented their

organization’s DAMS. It is taking an average of one to two years to fully implement a

DAMS, if there are no complications.

For example, Sheila Perry, the collections information systems manager at the

National Galleries of Scotland, experienced needing to re-launch the DAMS because

there were serious issues with the software. While the DAMS project only took nine


months to come to fruition, the re-launch took about 18 months (Personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015). Deborah Wythe describes the Brooklyn Museum’s

first vendor experience as touch-and-go. The museum decided to stop the project and

no longer work with the vendor they originally hired. During the one-year period

before the project picked back up, Wythe used the time to begin cataloguing and

organizing digital assets for the DAMS (Personal correspondence, March 17, 2015).

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) began implementation

in early 2013 and are in the final stages of working out some issues syncing the

DAMS to their collection management systems and ensuring staff are comfortable

finding and obtaining assets from the “Digital Garden” (L. White, personal

correspondence, April 5, 2015). White noted that their staff refers to its DAMS as the

SFMoMA Digital Garden, “which intends to signal a pleasing experience…[the] goal

is to have everyone in the museum using the Digital Garden in their work” (L. White,

personal correspondence, April 5, 2015).

Once the DAMS is implemented, how many departments are or will be using

the DAMS? Nine of the fourteen interviewees allow all departments access to the

DAMS. One of the interviewees allowed most departments access to the DAMS. Two

of the interviewees allow two departments access to the DAMS. One of the

interviewees allows only one department access to the DAMS. How many

departments use a DAMS is directly tied to the needs for the DAMS and the problems

the museum is attempting to solve (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23,

2015; Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; T. Fullerton, personal





March 13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Shean,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; T. Young, personal correspondence, March

24, 2015; J. Wells, personal correspondence, March 30, 2015; L. White, personal



What types of digital assets are museum DAMS handling? All of the

interviewees are currently using their DAMS to handle images (Anonymous, personal

correspondence, March 23, 2015; Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24,

2015; T. Fullerton, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; K. Grace, personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal correspondence,

March 16, 2015; N. Honeysett, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; F. Lloyd-

Baynes, personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence,

March 19, 2015; J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; T. Young,

personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; J. Wells, personal correspondence, March

30, 2015; L. White, personal correspondence, April 5, 2015; E. Wittenberg, personal

correspondence, March 25, 2015; D. Wythe, personal correspondence, March 17,

2015). Eight of the fourteen have the capability to handle video and audio assets


correspondence, March 19, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015;

J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; T. Young, personal




correspondence, March 17, 2015). Four are handling document assets on their DAMS

(J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal correspondence, March 16, 2015; S. Perry, personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015;

T. Young, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015). The need for DAMS in

museums is directly related to the need to organize and make assets findable and

accessible.

Training. If the main objective for a DAMS is to allow staff to find the digital

assets on their own, how are museums preparing staff to use the DAMS? One

interviewee indicated that the vendor included training for the key stakeholders or

training for all staff by departments (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23,

2015). Another interviewee used a PowerPoint Presentation at an all-staff meeting to

introduce the DAMS (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015).

The majority of interviewees describe a three-stage training process. The first

stage is a detailed and intimate training process for the key stakeholders, department

heads, or power users. The second stage is made up of individual or group trainings

normally called workshops or tutorials. Here staff receive the keyword hierarchy

needed to search digital assets, are shown how to access the DAMS, where to find

training videos, and given an e-mail list serve for questions relating to the DAMS. The

third stage is meant for general users who use the DAMS occasionally. They are

directed to the how-to-videos or how-to-PDFs for the DAMS (T. Fullerton, personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015; K. Grace personal correspondence, March 19, 2015;

J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal correspondence, March 16, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes,


personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March

19, 2015; J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; L. White, personal



Nik Honeysett, Director and CEO of Balboa Park Online Collaborative, points

out that training staff to use and maintain the DAMS is a very difficult task, made

more difficult if staff turnover is prevalent. Training can quickly become watered

down and misinformed over time (Personal correspondence, March 19, 2015).

Evaluation. Over time, as staff begin to use the DAMS, how are museums

evaluating if the DAMS is successful or not? Are museums evaluating if their DAMS

are successful? Yes and no… Many museums look at performance indicators such as

statistics on usage and downloads of assets but do not conduct formal surveys


correspondence, March 19, 2015). As one respondent noted, formal surveys are not

seen as necessary because the system is working and no one is “complaining” (T.

Fullerton, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; D. Wythe, personal

correspondence, March 17, 2015). But there are many museums that are evaluating

their DAM systems using surveys, e-mail listservs, face-to-face meetings, and

discussions to obtain user feedback (J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19,

2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; K. Grace, personal

correspondence, March 19, 2015; L. White, personal correspondence, April 5, 2015).

One interviewee indicated the staff at their institution were clearly dissatisfied

with the DAMS and an evaluation needed to be completed. Unfortunately, this


person’s main responsibility is licensing and research which takes priority over the

DAMS. The lack of time makes it impossible to complete an evaluation (Anonymous,

personal correspondence, March 24, 2015). Individual staff members who have

multiple responsibilities are challenged by not having enough hours in the day or the

support needed to fully complete all responsibilities.

Policies & Procedures. Are museums creating policies and procedures for

their DAMS? Policies for a DAMS could include procedures such as who can use the

DAMS and how can it be used. A majority of interviewees stated that policies are

enforced through user permissions and securities. Some users can see restricted

materials while others only see a portion of the digital assets as they relate to their job

tasks (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes,

personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; J. Shean, personal correspondence, March

19, 2015; D. Wythe, personal correspondence, March 17, 2015).

Procedures could include how to search for digital assets or how assets are

uploaded to the DAMS. A majority of these procedures are addressed in staff training

documents and videos. Several interviewees acknowledge that the administrators of

their DAMS have their own verbal policies and procedures in place (K. Grace,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; E. Wittenberg, personal correspondence,

March 25, 2015).

Several interviewees are currently developing their policies and procedures as

they prepare to unroll their DAMS. Some expressed interest in seeing how other

museums put together their policies and procedures (T. Fullerton, personal



March 16, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; L.

White, personal correspondence, April 5, 2015). It seems that policies and procedures

are important and needed but not all are formalizing theirs at this time.

Can a DAMS make a museum more transparent to its staff? Nine of the

fourteen interviewees believe that their DAMS are making their museums more

transparent for their staff (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; T.

Fullerton, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal

correspondence, March 16, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal correspondence, March

13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Wells, personal



correspondence, March 17, 2015). Jessica Herczeg-Konecny, the digital asset

manager at the Detroit Institute of Arts, says, “It’s a good opportunity to discuss what

kind of work everyone is doing” (Personal correspondence, March 16, 2015). Sheila

Perry echoes Herczeg-Konecny, stating, “This is particularly the case with

departments who may do a lot of work that is usually ‘hidden’ from colleagues (not

deliberately!) such as education and conservation” (Personal correspondence, March

19, 2015). Many more interviewees agree that the DAMS has given staff greater

access to much more content than they have ever had before but that it may not

necessarily mean the museum is more transparent (Anonymous, personal


2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; E. Wittenberg,


personal correspondence, March 25, 2015; D. Wythe, personal correspondence, March

17, 2015).

Resources & Standards. My final set of questions looked to the larger field.

Are there specific resources for museums about DAMS?

The top 4 resources were:

1. Henry Steward Journal & Conference 2. Museum Computer Network 3. Museums of the Web 4. Talking with other museum professionals who had already

experienced the process



N. Honeysett, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal

correspondence, March 13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015;

J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; D. Wythe, personal


The secondary resources were:

1. David Diamond, “DAMS Survival Guide” 2. Heather Hedden, “The Accidental Taxonomist” 3. ImageMuse 4. Collections Trust 5. Ralph Windsor, “DAM Podcast”

(J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Wells, personal

correspondence, March 30, 2015; E. Wittenberg, personal correspondence, March 25,

2015).

Is there one specific resource museums can use to guide them in the

implementation of a DAMS? Outside of the resources listed above the answer was a


resounding NO (Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 24, 2015; F. Lloyd-

Baynes, personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal


2015). There is no one resource museums implementing DAMS can look to as a

comprehensive how-to-manual. Anonymous stated, “I would like to see our

institutions not have to reinvent the wheel” (Personal correspondence, March 24,

2015).

While there may not be one singular resource for implementing a DAMS in a

museum setting, there is one resource all interviewees agreed was the best: “...reaching

out to other people in the GLAM field who do this kind of work has been so valuable”

(J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal correspondence, March 16, 2015). Sheila Perry echoes

by saying, “I would say the most useful thing for us was to see for ourselves how other

museums had done things” (Personal correspondence, March 19, 2015).

Are there currently clear standards or best practices for museum DAMS? The

response was once again a resounding NO, from the majority of interviewees



March 16, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal correspondence, March 13, 2015; J.

Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J. Wells, personal correspondence,

March 30, 2015; D. Wythe, personal correspondence, March 17, 2015).

Anonymous points to libraries as having the most developed standards and best

practices so far (Personal correspondence, March 23, 2015). While some interviewees

believe that there are no clear standards or best practices they do believe that museums


are individually creating standards and best practices which fit their needs (K. Grace,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March

19, 2015). Cataloging standards seem to be lacking according to interviewees. While

there is no one standard there seems to be progress with Dublin Core and VRA Core1

(Anonymous, personal correspondence, March 23, 2015; F. Lloyd-Baynes, personal

correspondence, March 13, 2015; J. Shean, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015).

Herczeg-Konecny believes the information is out there but unfortunately it is

scattered. Additionally, museums have unique data sets and work flows, making it

more difficult to have a singular set of standards or best practices for all museums to

follow (Personal correspondence, March 16, 2015).

Layna White depicts a more broad and moldable approach, stating, “Surely

we’ve arrived at a place and time where we can say that we (as museums) have

established good practices around digital asset management. In terms of standards…

it’d be useful to tease apart…standards related to DAMS: e.g., format standards for

assets, data standards. Like with our other systems, it may be that, at the local level,

museums determine which good practices and which standards (or a hybridization of

published practices and standards) best suit their local needs” (Personal

correspondence, April 5, 2015).

What are the most important things interviewees have learned from

implementing a DAMS? Interviewees offered a variety of suggestions, including these

lessons learned:

1. It will take longer than you plan! 1 http://www.alastore.ala.org/nealschuman/companionwebsite/metadata-digital-


2. Details, DETAILS, DETAILS! 3. Museums do not appreciate IT costs and that (IT funding) tends to be

lacking. 4. I wish I had a bigger staff. Metadata Equals Manpower. 5. Effective communication is critical. 6. You need staff buy-in. 7. Change is hard but it is also very good. Be understanding. 8. It is a complicated process and you need to be organized. 9. Separate what needs to be addressed immediately versus what can be

addressed in five years. 10. Return on investment (ROI) is a mythical creature. You can only get

out of a DAM system what you put into the DAM system. 11. Try to keep it simple for users. 12. Make something users will enjoy using. 13. Make the content users need and/or want available and findable in the

DAMS. 14. Don’t underestimate the time needed to shepherd the processes and the

assets. 15. DAMS is a living resource.




personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; F, Lloyd-Baynes, personal correspondence,

March 13, 2015; S. Perry, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; J, Shean,

personal correspondence, March 19, 2015; L. White, personal correspondence, April

5, 2015; E. Wittenberg, personal correspondence, March 25, 2015; D. Wythe, personal


Conclusion

The goal of the survey was to capture a “snapshot” of the current landscape of

DAMS and museums. The survey responses suggest that the majority of museums

currently with a DAMS in place are art museums and the literature backs this up. 58%


of the survey respondents work at an institution with an annual budget greater than

$10,000,001. The effectiveness of DAMS at the surveyed institutions shows that it is

an essential part of 78.79% respondent’s workflow, 64.52% of respondents use it

regularly throughout the day, and 74.19% say it has improved their workflow. Overall,

67.74% of respondents believe they are extremely likely to recommend a digital asset

management system to other museum professionals or museums.

The phone and e-mail interviews captured a deeper dive into the issues

institutions face as they implement a DAMS. Currently there does not seem to be one

set framework for implementing a DAMS within a museum setting. There are

currently no set of clear standards or best practices for implementing a DAMS in a

museum setting. It is still very much like venturing out into the last frontier. What the

interviews proved undoubtedly is that museums are akin to fingerprints. There are no

two that are identical, making it difficult to ascertain a standard template for DAM

implementation in museums.


Conclusions & Recommendations

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Bascombe Valley Mystery

The literature review and findings chapters were meant to capture a “snapshot”

of the current landscape of DAMS used in museums in the United States and Europe.

While museums and DAMS were not originally built for one another, they have come

together as a means of sharing information, preserving museum collections digitally,

and enhancing a museum’s ability to leverage digital assets internally and externally as

a means to more fully complete its mission.

A significant finding to arise from the literature review and my primary

research is that there is no one source museum professionals can look to for

information about how to implement a DAMS in a museum setting. This is important

because DAMS were created for for-profit entities with monetary goals and objectives,

whereas museums are non-profit entities with mission-driven goals and objectives.

Additionally, museums have a very different set of needs for their metadata.

Therefore, there is a critical need for more investigation and conversation about

museum DAMS. Museum professional need to have an investigative conversation

discussing the need for more open and independent access to information for staff and

the public. A digital asset management system is a discovery tool used to access

information. Discussing how museum staff access information, what information they

are accessing, and what information is missing in museum DAMS could lead to the

creation of a stable standard for metadata for the museum field as a whole. While one

source alone is not enough to support the museum field it would be beneficial to have


one location to house literature specifically geared to museums’ DAM needs,

implementation guidelines and standards, and lessons learned.

The Findings section brought together the deeper conundrums facing the

museum field. The 14 museum professionals I interviewed are either looking into

DAMS products for their museum, are implementing a DAMS currently, or are

administering a DAMS. From these conversations, I was able to pull out ten

reoccurring themes. Interestingly, it did not matter what stage each professional was at

in a DAMS project; all had stunningly similar experiences, questions, and frustrations.

From these main conclusions, I am able to offer a set of recommendations for museum

professionals and the wider field.

1. There is No One-Size-Fits-All DAMS Template or Checklist

Museums, being mission-driven entities, bend the definition of a DAMS to fit

their scope, vision, and needs; this is depicted by the fifty unique definitions of DAMS

collected in the online survey. Almost all of the definitions state that a DAMS stores,

organizes, catalogs, retrieves, and shares digital assets. Additionally, there are several

reasons and combinations of reasons to implement a DAMS at a museum such as to

enhance workflow or metadata, to minimize duplicates of assets, or to allow more

access to the museum’s archive, as Figure 1 points out in the Findings chapter.

Access, for internal and external purposes, has been a core theme throughout this

investigation. There is currently no one-size-fits-all checklist or template for museums

to use when implementing a DAMS. This can be attributed to the varying sizes of

museums’ annual budgets, the size of core teams for the implementation (1 to 15), and


no one specific resource geared specifically for museums to use in the implementation

process.

There are no one-size-fits-all DAMS for museums. This is due largely to their

non-profit and mission-driven nature. Museums are like fingerprints. Each is unique

and there is no other that is exactly the same. DAMS were originally built to support

for-profit global corporations with huge amounts of digital assets to maintain and earn

revenue from. While museums can obtain revenue through copyright and licensing of

images it seem unanimous that museums do not maintain any steady revenue through

this venture.

Not surprisingly, each museum has specific needs it is trying to fulfill. For

collections, administration, social media, education, marketing, and exhibition, all

must reflect or promote the mission of the individual museum. Understanding why an

organization needs a DAMS is critical to its success and longevity. My

recommendation for the museum field is to have the DAMS implementation team

members actively engaged with the key stakeholders to better understand what they

need from the DAMS for their staff to effectively be able to complete daily workflows.

Additionally, talking with other museums that have implemented their own DAMS has

been cited in my Findings chapter as one of the most beneficial research tactics. Most

importantly, the museum should share its experience implementing a DAMS to the

museum field. The more information shared within the museum professional network,

the more connected it can become and the faster information will accrue to build a

more useable resource base for the field.


2. Understanding the Need for a DAMS

Before any steps can be taken to obtain a DAMS an institution must first and

foremost fully understand their need for one. Understanding this need will draw out

the scope and main goals of the DAMS as well as the workflow issues it is meant to

iron out. The institution must consider the needs of all of the departments affected by

the DAMS. It must determine how they will use the DAMS in their daily workflows,

as well as how they will maintain and administer the system. Establishing what the

current workflow issues are, and what departments need their staff to do and how

departments want staff to do it, are key for backend development of the DAMS

software.

Additionally, museum staff need to consider what the barriers are for this

project. Is it a limited budget? Lack of staff? Office politics? Every museum project

has barriers. Pinpointing those barriers, whatever they maybe, allows the DAMS

implementation staff the ability to create realistic goals for the DAMS, prepare for

resistance, and, most importantly, describe how the DAMS could potentially eliminate

or elevate some of these barriers for the institution.

Barriers, as found in the Literature Review chapter, could consist of limited

budgets, staff, and internal skills needed to complete a well-executed implementation

(McGovern, 2013). The Findings chapter also shows that while the majority of survey

respondents had a very good experience with their museum DAMS there was a small

percentage that did not. For example, 16% (5 of 33 survey respondents) did not

believe that the DAMS improved their workflow. When asked to rate staff acceptance

on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being very low and 5 being very high, 3% (1 of the 33 survey


respondents) choose to rate staff acceptance a 1 and 16% (5 survey respondents)

choose to rate staff acceptance a 2. Understanding why staff acceptance was not

successful is an important lesson learned for the museum field as a whole. Staff

coming into a project with poor past experiences with DAMS could be a barrier to the

project.

My recommendation is to start at the end goal. Where does the organization

want to be, what does it want to be able to do, and why? Completing a full assessment

of the participating departments’ needs as well as a complete inventory of digital

assets used by the organization are essential to understanding what the DAMS will

need to support. Finally an inventory of staff skills is helpful to identify if any staff

training is necessary or if new staff should be hired for the DAMS implementation.

One resource to assist in accomplishing this task is, “Digital Asset Management:

Where to Start,” written by Megan McGovern (2013).

3. Key Stakeholder & Staff Buy-in

Both my Literature Review and Findings chapters assert that support from the

key stakeholders and general staff buy-in are essential for a DAMS project to succeed.

Obtaining or sparking buy-in helps with smoothing over angst due to workflow

changes and change in general. Change in workflow could be how and where staff

employees log in, or the user interface they work on, and this can be disorienting.

Having the support of key stakeholders allows the implementation staff to have

advocates who can quell fears and correct misinformation.

Buy-in is the process by which a project receives support from key

stakeholders, power users, or general staff who advocate for the project. Buy-in can


take place at any point of the DAMS implementation process but it is critical to have

the major players on board long before implementation takes place. Obtaining buy-in

for a DAMS is knowing and effectively explaining how a DAMS is going to improve

a staff’s day-to-day operations.

For key stakeholders, more effective day-to-day operations mean that their

staff will be able to get more work done more easily and is a powerful notion when

deadlines loom and stress is high. For general staff the idea of not having to jump

through hoops is always inviting. How the DAMS changes workflow and opens

channels of information is powerful, but communicating the change effectively is

critical.

My recommendation for staff buy-in is that the museum must thoroughly

understand the underlying workflow issues and how the DAMS would resolve those

issues. Creating more time to do other essential tasks or to be able to begin new

projects is an exciting notion. At the same time, it is crucial to remind staff and key

stakeholders that a DAMS can solve workflow issues but not office politics.

Effectively communicate what the DAMS is intended to do. Do not oversell it and be

realistic about a DAMS capabilities. False promises breed negative mental barriers,

which can spread like wildfire among museum staff.

4. Understanding Change in Work Culture

The key to success is for you to make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear.

– Vincent Van Gogh

First and foremost, change is hard, but can often be very good. While my thesis

does not focus on change in work culture it is a reoccurring theme in the Literature


Review and Findings chapters. For instance, how staff are prepared for the DAMS

seems to play a large roll in how any staff receives it. Informational workshops,

department trainings, and group or one-on-one training sessions are important.

Communicating effectively is seen as critical and is listed as one of the most

important things interviewees had learned from implementing a DAMS.

My recommendation to all DAMS implementation staff is to be informed about

how to manage change and prepare for the types of resistance or uncertainty the team

might face during the project. The more tools that are in your tool belt, the better

equipped leadership will be to advocate for the project and calm the masses. Finally, I

suggest keeping staff openly informed about the DAMS progress as it is implemented.

Be transparent throughout the entire process, even after the DAMS has been fully

rolled out.

5. Communication

Tying in nicely to all of the themes is communication. It was clear from my

Findings chapter that communicating effectively is critical in a DAMS project. Many

interviewees state that this was the most important thing they learned while

implementing a DAMS. It is undoubtedly a common sense factor but it must be

maintained at all levels of implementation. Communication means transparency for a

DAMS project. The more transparent the DAMS staff are about progress, what

implementation involves, and the time it will take to complete, the more the general

museum staff can digest that the project requires a significant amount of effort to

complete and is a priority for the museum.


Keeping staff informed throughout the entire process can make them feel more

involved, prepared, and excited about the DAMS. Celebrating small victories with

staff is one way to communicate about each stage of implementation as well as to

maintain the excitement for the roll-out of the final product. Including nonessential

staff in project victories allows them to feel more connected to the project. Allowing

staff to give input is good for the project and indicates that on some level they are

interested or committed to the overall goal. Additionally, staff insight may be very

valuable to the DAMS.

Without effective communication the project will most likely not be successful.

If the project manager cannot communicate to key stakeholders, there will be

difficulties in obtaining their support. If you cannot communicate how the DAMS will

change staff workflows for the better, then you will likely not obtain their support for

the project. The DAMS implementation staff should be able to communicate

effectively how the DAMS will benefit the museum in the long haul. Solidifying the

longevity of the DAMS is critical to ensuring staffs’ continued use of it.

I recommend that the DAMS implementation staff have one member who is in

charge of disseminating information about the project and keeping it relevant to all of

the staff. This person may also be responsible for communicating the museum’s needs

to the vendor. The more effective the communicator, the more likely the museum will

receive the product it wants.

6. Vendor Relationships

Negotiating and working with a DAMS vendor is inevitable. Understanding the

museum’s requirements is one simply way of evaluating if a vendor is a good fit.


Calling previous customers and asking what their experiences were and currently are

can be very insightful. Having vendors come and participate in a sandbox2 is another

valuable way of seeing how exactly the DAMS could be set up using digital assets the

museums has on a smaller scale. Be prepared for vendor issues along the way. They

may only be disagreements but they could also be dissatisfaction with the product or

poor software that requires reworking, all of which take time to work out.

A few of the interviewees discussed having their DAMS projects come to a

standstill for over a year due to vendor issues (S. Perry, personal correspondence,

March 19, 2015; D. Wythe, personal correspondence, March 17, 2015). I concluded

from my research that it is advisable to be prepared for the DAMS project to take

longer than originally estimated.

My recommendation is to always ask questions when it comes to vendors. Ask

other museums professionals about their experiences. Ask the vendor’s references

about their experiences. Be up front about what the museum wants. If there is a similar

product that the team wants, show it directly to the vendor. Leave as little room for

miscommunication as possible. The museum is or will be spending some amount of

capital on the project, whether it is money, staff time, hiring new staff, or additional

training for current staff. Making sure the DAMS fits the criteria of what the museum

2 “A sandbox is a testing environment that isolates untested code changes and outright experimentation from the production environment or repository, in the context of software development including Web development and revision control. Sandboxing protects "live" servers and their data, vetted source code distributions, and other collections of code, data and/or content, proprietary or public, from changes that could be damaging (regardless of the intent of the author of those changes) to a mission-critical system or which could simply be difficult to revert. Sandboxes replicate at least the minimal functionality needed to accurately test the programs or other code under development (e.g. usage of the same environment variables as, or access to an identical database to that used by, the stable prior implementation intended to be modified; there are many other possibilities, as the specific functionality needs vary widely with the nature of the code and the application[s] for which it is intended.)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_(software_development)


wants. Don’t be afraid to hold a vendor to its contract, deadlines, and product

deliverables.

7. Resources

A DAMS project does not necessarily mean there will be a huge injection of

funds. Implementation initially involves leveraging resources in-house before going

out and spending copious amounts of money. One resource to draw upon is the current

staff skills on hand. If staff are not yet qualified for the project then there could be an

investment in training, which could consist of researching the topic by attending

conferences or workshops, conducting literature reviews, and talking with

professionals who have completed the process and listening to their insights. It may

also mean hiring a new staff person who has the skill required for the project. Staff

time is a major resource in any DAMS project. Attaining the qualified staff needed for

the project can save money in the long run and help to minimize issues (McGovern,

2013).

Additionally, the budget set aside for a DAMS project is critical. Having the

funds needed to fulfill staffing needs, vendor costs, and a contingency fund for

unavoidable circumstances are all important. Planning for future costs once the project

is complete is essential to the survival of the DAMS. Understanding the long-term

costs of a DAMS and comparing those to the commitment of the museum to maintain

the DAMS over time is one way to evaluate museum commitment to the project.

My recommendation is to invest in staff so that they can ensure the project’s

longevity. The more resourceful and knowledgeable the staff is the more likely the


DAMS project will be successful. If a DAMS project has the resources it needs (staff

skills, staff time, quality vendor, monies, etc.), then it will thrive.

8. Metadata

Metadata is the lifeblood of any DAMS. Understanding what metadata is and

how it is related to what the DAMS is storing is crucial. Digital assets need metadata,

data within data, to optimize discovery capabilities. Metadata gives intimate details

about each individual digital asset. Information linked to an individual asset like a

photograph might include: who took the photograph; when the photograph was taken;

where the photograph was taken; and copyright and licensing information.

Per my Literature Review and Findings chapters, there currently is no singular

field-wide accepted standard for museum metadata. VRA Core and Dublin Core are

aware of this issue and are working on a solution but all museums have different

needs, making it difficult to come up with one metadata template that will work for all

museums and collection types.

My recommendation is to value the museum’s metadata, and not underestimate

its importance. A DAMS operates on metadata. If there is not a significant amount of

time invested in building out a robust DAMS then it will not operate like a robust

DAMS. It is not a simple “you get what you pay for” transaction. The team needs to

put in the work and make the DAMS a priority for it to operate at a high level. What is

put into a DAMS is exactly what can be retrieved from it. (Nik Honeysett, March 19,

2015).


9. Policies and Standards

As this research shows, there are currently no set standards for museums to

follow for DAMS policies and standards. Most museums seem to have some form of

policies and standards in place; some museums have more official or robust DAMS

policies and standards in place. Others have only verbal policies and standards in place

amongst the DAMS administrators.

Therefore, I recommend to the field that a written form of policies and

standards be required as a way to monitor all aspects of how the DAMS operates and

within what parameters. Standards provide a functional framework for staff to work

within. Consequently, if there is staff turnover then policies and standards can help to

better preserve institutional knowledge. “[B]y using standards-based approaches

whenever possible, you increase the longevity, portability, and interoperability of your

data” (HATII, 2002).

10. Evaluation

Due to the amount of money invested in a DAMS project, along with the staff

time and any other resources used it is curious that institutions are not conducting

more evaluations of the end product. My findings show that many museums are not

truly evaluating its effectiveness, outside of performance and data indicators like the

number of downloads within a given time frame or the types of assets being searched

for. I have many questions: How are staff using the DAMS? What are the common

workflow issues staff are having? If the DAMS allows the public the ability to search

the collection what is their reaction? How are they using it? What are they looking for?

Are they finding what they are looking for?


Investigating the common trends can bring to light the flaws but its can also

bring to light the huge successes that implementing DAMS is having. With the

technology changing so rapidly, keeping track of what is working and what is not can

be essential for when the museum decides to change vendors or upgrade its current

system.

Final Thoughts

Overall there are ten very clear conclusions and related recommendations that

can be drawn from the literature review and findings chapters. There is no one-size-

fits-all DAMS template or checklist for museums. Understanding the need for a

DAMS is critical to laying out the framework of the DAMS. Having key stakeholders

onboard for the DAM project is vital to the longevity of the DAMS. Considering

change culture is important in the transition from old workflows to new workflow.

Communicating with museum staff and the vendor is an essential part of the entire

project and needs to continue long after the DAMS is initially rolled out. The vendor

relationship is a necessity that cannot be ignored. Understanding what resources the

museum holds is essential to determine if trainings or new hires are required for the

project. Metadata is the lifeblood of the DAMS project and cannot be underestimated

in value. The policies and standards put in place for the DAMS are essential in

maintaining institutional knowledge and laying out the framework that supports the

DAMS. Last but not least, evaluating the DAM system’s strengths and weaknesses

allows for adjustments to be made over time and to make the DAMS more efficient. If

a museum chooses to switch vendors these strengths and weaknesses could be pointed

out and the lessons learned would pay off.


The most important conclusion drawn from the Literature Review and the

Findings chapters is that all museums currently using DAMS are doing so to allow

more direct access to the museum’s digital assets both for staff and the public. DAMS

can be a wonderful discovery tool but like anything else, there is a lot of hard work

that must go into making the system be effective. What a museum staff puts into the

tool is exactly what they will get out. It is an equal exchange.

While there is no clear go-to checklist or DAMS template that exists in the

field, there is a common set of implementation concerns that appears in both the

Literature Review and the Findings chapters. There are five key implementation

concerns museums are focusing on: the need, scope, implementation, barriers, and

lessons learned. Museums must define their “Need” for a DAMS; which is primarily

access to assets. Then, museums must define the “Scope” of the DAM project. Once

these two factors are established the large encompassing “Implementation” phase

begins. Implementation is a long tenuous phase consisting of research, a complete

inventory of the digital assets, selecting a vendor for the project, forging vendor

relationships, migrating assets, rolling out, and training. A massive amount of work

goes into the implementation of a DAMS. There are many “Barriers” to consider while

planning or implementing a DAMS. Barriers could be a small budget, lack of staff,

poor vendor relations, office politics, software issues, or a lack of quality metadata.

The “Lessons Learned” phase is when a museum reflects on the project’s strengths and

weaknesses. It is an essential part of preparing to make adjustments to the current

system and concerns to keep in mind if the museum ever chooses to change vendors or

upgrade their DAMS.


There is a loud cry for a singular piece of literature (Anonymous, personal

correspondence, March 24, 2015; F. Lloyde-Baynes, personal correspondence, March

13, 2015; J. Herczeg-Konecny, personal correspondence, March 16, 2015; T.

Fullerton, personal correspondence, March 19, 2015) which specifically discusses how

DAMS can work for museums, what implementing a DAMS for a museum looks like,

and what the long-term needs for a DAMS in a museum are. Museum professionals

want to stop inventing the wheel, and I don’t blame them. I call on our professional

associations and subject matter experts to produce these resources.

The first step is talking with colleagues and other museum professionals about

their individual experiences. Information sharing is essential in contributing to the

DAM conversation either in DAM groups, or at conferences where DAM sessions are

viable topics and have huge interest. Creating a conversation will spark professionals

to write literature centered on DAMS for museums.

I would recommend that the museum field create its own national DAMS focus

group. The group would meet yearly to discus new DAMS technologies, issues or

lessons learned, and victories within the museum community. It would serve as a more

cohesive and focused professional resource to obtain or exchange DAMS information

relating specifically to museums. I recommend forming a national group dedicated

solely to DAMS in museums because it is a large topic that continues to evolve

rapidly. The group would serve as a platform for museum professionals to connect

with one another more easily, advocate for museum-driven software from vendors, and

place resources like literature, grants, and forums in one location so museum

professional do not need to reinvent the wheel over and over again when implementing


a DAMS. The most likely association to organize and support this group would be the

Museum Computer Network, who already has a DAMS Special Interest Group, and

Museums and the Web. Talking with other museums that have implemented their own

DAMS has been cited in my Findings chapter as one of the most beneficial research

tactics. Most importantly, the museum should share its experience implementing a

DAMS to the museum field. The more information shared within the museum

professional network, the more connected it can become and the faster information

will accrue to build a more useable resource base for the field.

In all, museums are very individual in their characteristics, needs, and budgets.

Thankfully so are DAMS. Like balls of clay DAMS can be massaged into a shape that

fits the characteristics, needs, and budgets of a museum. With a little more

information, museums could share more of their collections with the rest of the world

and become more efficient internally.

In my mind, a DAM is an ecosystem. The more you understand it, the better

you become at tending its needs and in time it can grow into a valuable high-quality

resource. Take care of your DAM ecosystem and it will take care of you.


Product

“How dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Speckled Band

The product I have produced is a session proposal for the Museum Computer

Network Conference, “The Invisible Architectures of Connected Museums: Making

Meaning with People, Collections, and Information,” to be held in Minneapolis in

November 2015. I have invited three panelists to discuss their individual museum

DAM experiences for the session and all have agreed. They are:

• Deborah Wythe, Digital Collections and Services, Brooklyn Museum.

• Nik Honeysett, Chief Executive Officer, Balboa Park Online

Collaborative.

• Layna White, Head of Collections Information and Access, San

Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

I chose to ask each of the three panelists to participate in this session because

they are all currently working with digital asset management systems in museums.

Additionally, they each have experiences that vary from one another and they all work

for different types of museums, which gives the panel a wider breadth of experiences,

challenges, and lessons learned.

I have submitted the following session proposal for a multi-panel presentation

entitled, “Digital Asset Management Systems & Museums: Connecting Experiences to

Build Success.” The proposal focuses on the current landscape of museum DAMS and

the need for more museums to share their DAM experiences with the field.

The session will follow the attached itinerary:


A. Danielle Knapp, John F. Kennedy University Graduate, will begin and mediate

the session, introducing the purpose of the session and her thesis findings. The thesis

findings will outline the survey and interview results and produce a "snapshot" of the

current landscape of DAMS in museums for the audience. She will close with the

overall trends and themes presently in the field. Approximately 10-12 minutes.

B. Each of the three panelists will discuss four major themes all museums

encounter. First, each panelist will discuss their institution's need for a DAMS.

Second, the problems each institution was aiming to resolve with a DAMS. Third, the

barriers each institution encountered, and finally, the lessons learned from their DAMS

implementation experience. Approximately 10-12 minutes each.

C. The last 10 to 15 minutes will be spent discussing what the museum field can

do as a professional community to build more effective DAMS tailored to museums’

needs, mission, and long-term goals, and the overall need for more museums to share

their DAM experiences. The field will then answer questions from the audience.

Learning outcomes:

1. An understanding of the current state of DAMS in museums.

2. An understanding of the current trends, gaps, and lessons learned in marrying

the physical with the digital.

3. Exchanging DAM experiences is critical in advocating for 21st-century

museum DAMS success.


4. An understanding that sharing experiences can bring to light what the field

needs – possible standards and best practices – and resources for the

advancement of museums’ digital transformations.

5. Sparking the need for a "road map" to help bring to light the invisible

architecture required for implementing a museum DAMS.

I feel this is the best format for my project because it takes place amongst tech-

savvy museum professionals for whom this topic is most relevant. How do we as a

field build a support system for ourselves? The first step is sharing experiences and

a conference is the best platform to do so. I feel the best way for museums to solve

these DAM issues is to first share their experiences with one another. There is no

better example I can set than bringing together some of the most formidable

museum DAM professionals and have them discuss their experiences.

Contributing to sparking a viable conversation is the first step in the long journey

in figuring out how to create and leverage DAMS for the greatest benefit of

museums.


Reference List

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Broomfield, John. (2009). “Digital Asset management Case Study – Museum

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California Digital Library. (2011). CDL Digital File Format Recommendations:

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df


de Gyor, Henrik. (2013). “Another DAM Podcast Transcribed.” Henrik de Gyor. First

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Designing, Promoting, and Maintaining the Perfect Digital Asset Management

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Dunlop, Doug. (2014). “Moving digital assets at the Smithsonian Libraries into a

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Gibson, David. (2008). “Digital Asset Symposium: Museum of Modern Art, New

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Green, David. (2011). “Digital Rights Management for Museums.” Copyright & New

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Appendix A: Survey Questions

1. What type of museum do you work for? Check all that apply. a. Art Museum b. History Museum c. Natural History Museum d. Anthropology Museum e. Science or Technology Museum f. Specialized Museum (e.g. railroad, music, aviation) g. Botanical Garden h. Children’s Museum i. Zoological Park j. Nature Center k. Aquarium

2. What range does your museum’s annual budget fit?

a. $250,000 and under b. $250,001 - $500,000 c. $500,001 - $1,000,000 d. $1,000,001 - $3,000,000 e. $3,000,001 - $5,000,000 f. $5,000,001 - $10,000,000 g. $10,000,001 and over

3. How would you define a Digital Asset Management System?

a. Open response: _____

4. Does your museum have a DAMS in place? a. Yes b. No c. I do not know

5. Are you now or have you ever worked with a digital asset management

system? a. Yes (Continue to question 6) b. No (Survey closes and respondent is thanked for their time)

6. Why did your museum consider a DAMS? Check all that apply.

a. To enhance work flow b. To secure all digital assets in one place c. To enable staff to more easily access information d. To cut costs e. To more effectively manage copyrights f. To allow more access to the museum’s archives g. To minimize duplication of assets h. To enhance metadata


i. For collection management j. For educational purposes k. For all departments l. For the museum website m. I do not know n. Other (please specify): ______

7. About how long did it take to install your museum’s DAMS?

a. Less than a year b. About a year c. About 2 years d. About 3 years e. About 4 years f. About 5 years g. Over 6 years h. I do not know

8. About how long has your DAMS been installed?

a. Less than a year b. About a year c. About 2 years d. About 3 years e. About 4 years f. About 5 years g. Over 6 years h. I do not know

9. How many departments use the DAMS?

a. All museum departments b. Many museums departments c. A few museum departments d. Only one museum department e. None f. I do not know

10. Is the DAMS an essential part of your workflow?

a. Yes b. No c. Indifferent

11. In your opinion, is the DAMS interface user-friendly?

a. Extremely user-friendly b. Quite user-friendly c. Indifferent d. Slightly user-friendly e. Not user-friendly


12. How often do you use the DAMS?

a. Regularly throughout the day b. Once a day c. Every few days d. Once a week e. A few times a month f. A few times a year

13. Has the DAMS improved your workflow?

a. Yes b. No c. Not sure

14. On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being very low and 5 being very high, how would you

rate staff acceptance of the DAMS? a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5

15. How likely is it that you would recommend a Digital Asset Management

System to other museum professionals or museums? a. Extremely likely b. Moderately likely c. Indifferent d. Slightly likely e. Not at all likely

16. If you would like to participate in an interview about DAMS in museums for

this thesis project, please leave your name, phone, email, institution and state below and I will contact you shortly.


Appendix B: Interview Questions

1. What is your job title, what are your responsibilities, and how long have you held the position?

2. What is the DAMS you are currently working on?

3. How long has it been in place?

4. Did you work directly on the core team implementing the DAMS? If so what was your role? Was the core team made up of museum staff or was an independent person brought in to lead the DAMS implementation?

5. Why did your museum choose to implement a DAMS?

6. What tools were used to assess the museum's need for a DAMS?

7. What type of research did the museum complete on DAMS?

8. What were the upfront costs of the DAMS?

9. What are the estimated long-term costs of the DAMS?

10. How long did it take to fully implement the DAMS?

11. How many departments use the DAMS?

12. What types of digital assets does your DAMS handle?

13. How did you prepare staff for the new DAMS?

14. Does your DAMS use an API to link systems? If so what system(s) does it

link?

15. What tools were used to evaluate the DAMS success?

16. What are the museum's long-term goals of the DAMS?

17. How were those goals established?

18. Does your museum have policies and procedures in place for the DAMS use?

19. Do you believe that the DAMS has made or will make the museum more transparent for its staff members? Please explain why or why not.


20. What is the most important thing you have learned from implementing a DAMS?

21. Are there specific resources you found helpful in learning about DAMS for

museums?

22. Is there one specific resource museums can use to guide them in the implementation of a DAMS?

23. Do you believe there are clear standards and best practices for museum

DAMS? Why or why not?

24. Would you like this interview to be listed as Anonymous or can I list your name and job title in my thesis report?


Appendix C: Interview Contacts Name Via Date Position(s) Frances Lloyd-Baynes

Phone 3/13/15 Content Database Specialist at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Jessica Herczeg-Konecny

E-mail 3/16/15 Digital Asset manager at the Detroit Institute of Arts

Deborah Wythe Phone 3/17/15 Head of Digital Collections and Services at the Brooklyn Museum

Travis Fullerton E-mail 3/19/15 Chief Photographer & Manger of Imaging Resources at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Sheila Perry E-mail 3/19/15 Collections Information Systems Manager at the National Galleries of Scotland

Kristen Grace Phone 3/19/15 Photographer/DAM at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida

Julie Shean Phone 3/19/15 Technical Architect of Digital Media at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nik Honeysett Phone 3/19/15 Director and CEO at the Balboa Park Online Collaborative

Anonymous 1 Phone 3/23/15 N/A Anonymous 2 Phone 3/24/15 N/A Tamsen Young Phone 3/24/15 Museum Digital Media & Strategic Initiatives

Manager at the Museum at FIT Emily Wittenberg Phone 3/25/15 Digital Archivist at the Natural History Museum of

Los Angeles County Jeff Wells E-mail 3/30/15 Manager of Photographic and Imaging Services at

the Denver Art Museum Layna White E-mail 4/5/15 Head of Collections Information and Access at the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art


Appendix D: Online Survey Results

Figure 1. The bar graph displays survey respondents’ places of work.

What type of museum do you work for? Check al l that apply.

Answer Options Response Percent

Response Count

Art Museum 48.0% 24 History Museum 34.0% 17 Natural History Museum 16.0% 8 Anthropology Museum 10.0% 5 Science or Technology Museum 10.0% 5 Special ized Museum (e.g., rai lroad, music, aviat ion)

10.0% 5

Botanical Garden 4.0% 2 Children's Museum 0.0% 0 Zoological Park 2.0% 1 Nature Center 0.0% 0 Aquarium 6.0% 3

Answered question 50

48%

34%

16%

10%

10%

10%

4%

0%

2%

0%

6%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Art Museum

History Museum

Natural History Museum

Anthropology Museum

Science or Technology Museum

Specialized Museum (e.g., railroad, music, aviation)

Botanical Garden

Children's Museum

Zoological Park

Nature Center

Aquarium

What type of museum do you work for? Check all that apply.


Figure 2. The pie chart shows the annual budget of the survey respondents’ museums.

What range does your museum's annual budget f i t?


Response Count

$250,000 and under 10.0% 5 $250,001 - $500,000 6.0% 3 $500,001 - $1,000,000 2.0% 1 $1,000,001 - $3,000,000 10.0% 5 $3,000,001 - $5,000,000 6.0% 3 $5,000,001 - $10,000,000 8.0% 4 $10,000,001 and over 58.0% 29


10%

6% 2%

10%

6%

8%

58%

What range does your museum's annual budget ;it?

$250,000 and under

$250,001 - $500,000

$500,001 - $1,000,000

$1,000,001 - $3,000,000

$3,000,001 - $5,000,000

$5,000,001 - $10,000,000

$10,000,001 and over


Figure 3. How each survey respondent defines a digital asset management system.

“How would you define a Digital Asset Management System?” 1. A system that supports the digital asset lifecycle(s). 2. Method for tracking and accessing digital assets (files such

as images, documents, video files) 3. Don't know. 4. Tool for cataloging and accessing digital assets 5. A systematic set of practices and tool(s) for managing digital

media assets. 6. Database that organizes and provides sophisticated search

capability for a wide range of media/still image types. Allows for granular control of user permissions, including controlled access to file downloading. Once fully developed allow users not only to find assets they know exist, but also to discover relevant assets of which they had no prior knowledge. Serves as the management tool for the central media repository

7. System for managing digital files 8. A tool to archive, manage and track use of digital assets 9. A database to keep track of collection inventory, donors and

members. And one that allows digital photos to be uploaded to the Internet.

10. A digital program used for storing, managing and retrieving digital assets, such as images of collection objects.

11. The Image authority for the collection and the digital preservation system.

12. Fault tolerant repository for all digital assets w/ sophisticated retrieval and organization technology based on asset content.

13. Software that allows organizations/businesses to organize, search, retrieve, set permissions, associate metadata, and reduce redundancy for all their digital assets (text files, image files, sound, video, etc.)

14. System for managing image, audio, and video files of institutional significance.

15. Technology that allows for robust cataloging of a variety of digital asset types, indexes embedded metadata and serves as a primary rendition storage system that creates distribution derivatives. Digital Asset Management Systems help manage administrative, structural, and descriptive metadata. Cataloging of rights related information, preservation metadata, and version control are also central concepts to managing digital assets.

16. A stand alone repository for all museum related images


17. As a separate (from other data bases such as TMS or Argus, etc.) data base which is the repository for all images generated and used by the museum, collection, exhibits, events, portraits, etc.

18. A DAMS is a central repository that allows staff to capture and record copyright, accession, description, technical and localized information about digital assets held my the institution. A DAMS allows for users to access digital assets by their content regardless of where they are located on the server.

19. Bb 20. Systems and workflows to track and manage digital assets. 21. Database of image (or other asset) metadata linked to a

protected file repository. 22. A software system designed to manage digital assets. Digital

assets can include many different files for different purposes: collection images, PDFs, word docs, digital video, audio, etc. can be used in conjunction with a collection management system.

23. A repository for digital assets, providing rich metadata to ensure assets are discoverable, and a tool for deployment

24. Any piece of software and/or processes that allow you to catalog, search, and retrieve digital files

25. A system that catalogs digital assets using metadata and keywords with a variety of customizable functions and allowing for multiple people/departments access to said assets. For us, we use a Digital Asset Management system to database our photographic digital assets. We use an enterprise, expandable system that has both client and web applications.

26. A database that holds and organizes digital media. 27. Media repository and workflow tool 28. A system to store and retrieve digital media and metadata

that allows for search and retrieval with varying degrees of permissions granted to users by an administrative body.

29. A DAM is a program (software) used for the organization, retrieval, and distribution of digital assets (in this case, primarily images).

30. Database to manage digital collections/items. 31. A database that both stores digital assets of various types

and manages their associated metadata, allowing users to load, access and download the assets.

32. A system to manage assets like digital audio, video, photos and other digital files like documents and email.


33. A searchable catalog that allows staff to access digital assets, including visual media (videos, art, photos) as well as logos, campaign art, etc. The system allows information to be stored about each asset, and an administrator catalogs, curates, and can grant different permissions to users.

34. Jhkh 35. A digital ecosystem that allows users to organize, access,

and archive enterprise assets in a stable and sustainable manner.

36. A DAM allows for the storage, organization and cataloging of digital assets (digital files with associated metadata). A DAM streamlines file sharing and retrieval while managing rights and pertinent data.

37. A system to facilitate the managing (cataloging, storing, finding, and sharing) of digital assets (files such as images, documents, audio, video in digital form).

38. Not sure. 39. A system of checks and balances that ensures that all digital

material that is important to the institution, be it financial records, digitized collections, or collections catalogues, is safe, backed-up, and protected from deletion or disaster.

40. As a database to organize and make accessible a set of digital assets, including text documents, images, digital drawings, audio and video clips, etc.

41. A database in which to store audio and visual assets. 42. An institutional database that is used for maintaining

control of the inventory of accessioned artifacts, specimens, and objects.

43. The digital space in which image files and videos are held separately from the record database.

44. D-space 45. A software application that identifies tracks and reports on

digital assets. 46. The method that is used for tracking and storing digital

files, it can include the metadata as well. 47. I don't really know what that is. I guess it's when you have

electronic resources like digital photos or PDFs, and you need a database to store them.

48. Unclear what you are talking about 49. I assume you mean using some kind of database to track

artifacts and acquisitions. 50. A centralized and secure system for an enterprise's assets to

be cataloged, stored, retrieved, and used in accordance to its metadata.

• The 50 responses are listed in the order they were received. *


Figure 4. The pie chart shows how many of the survey respondents’ museums currently have a DAMS in place.

Does your museum have a DAMS in place?


Response Count

Yes 69.4% 34 No 18.4% 9 I do not know 12.2% 6


70%

18%

12%

Does your museum have a DAMS in place?

Yes

No

I do not know


Figure 5. The pie chart shows the amount of survey respondents who have worked with a DAMS.

Are you now or have you ever worked with a digital asset management system?


Response Count

Yes 73.5% 36 No 26.5% 13


74%

26%

Are you now or have you ever worked with a digital asset management system?

Yes

No


Figure 6. The graph depicts why survey respondents’ museums considered DAMS.

To enhance work 9low

To secure all digital assets in one place

To enable staff to more easily access information

To cut costs

To more effectively manage copyright

To allow more access to the museum's archives

To minimize duplications of assets

To enhance metadata

For collection management

For educational purposes

For all departments

For the museum website

I do not know

Other (please specify)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Why did your museum consider a DAMS? Check all that apply.


Why did your museum consider a DAMS? Check al l that apply.

Answer Options

Response Percent

Response Count

To enhance work f low 72.7% 24 To secure al l digital assets in one place 69.7% 23 To enable staff to more easily access information 84.8% 28 To cut costs 12.1% 4 To more effectively manage copyright 48.5% 16 To al low more access to the museum's archives 54.5% 18 To minimize duplications of assets 72.7% 24 To enhance metadata 57.6% 19 For col lection management 45.5% 15 For educational purposes 33.3% 11 For al l departments 57.6% 19 For the museum website 54.5% 18 I do not know 6.1% 2 Other (please specify) 12.1% 4


Number Other (please specify) 1 Did not check the copyright box because that is not why we initially considered

and implemented a DAM, however we are now planning to further develop its rights management capabilities.

2 Centralize image management. 3 (Museum website being a museum consortia site) 4 Used SharePoint as a DAM substitute at a previous museum. Not at current

museum.


Figure 7. The pie chart displays how long it took to install digital asset management systems at the survey respondents’ organizations.

About how long did i t take to instal l your museum's DAMS?


Response Count

Less than a year 21.2% 7 About a year 12.1% 4 About 2 years 30.3% 10 About 3 years 6.1% 2 About 4 years 3.0% 1 About 5 years 3.0% 1 Over 6 years 6.1% 2 I do not know 18.2% 6


21%

12%

31%

6%

3% 3%

6%

18%

About how long did it take to install your museum's DAMS?

Less than a year

About a year

About 2 years

About 3 years

About 4 years

About 5 years

Over 6 years

I do not know


Figure 8. The pie chart represents the amount of time survey respondents’ digital asset management system have been installed.

About how long has your DAMS been instal led?


Response Count

Less than a year 21.2% 7 About a year 6.1% 2 About 2 years 9.1% 3 About 3 years 6.1% 2 About 4 years 9.1% 3 About 5 years 3.0% 1 Over 6 years 33.3% 11 I do not know 12.1% 4


21%

6%

9%

6%

9%

3%

34%

12%

About how long has your DAMS been installed?

Less than a year

About a year

About 2 years

About 3 years

About 4 years

About 5 years

Over 6 years

I do not know


Figure 9. The pie chart below depicts the number of departments that use the survey respondents’ digital asset management systems.

How many departments use the DAMS?


Response Count

All museum departments 27.3% 9 Many museum departments 33.3% 11 A few museum departments 18.2% 6 Only one museum department 15.2% 5 None 0.0% 0 I do not know 6.1% 2


28%

33%

18%

15%

0%

6%

How many departments use the DAMS?

All museum departments

Many museum departments

A few museum departments

Only one museum department

None

I do not know


Figure 10. The pie chart below shows the impact of a digital asset management system on survey respondents’ workflows.

Is the DAMS an essential part of your workflow?


Response Count

Yes 78.8% 26 No 9.1% 3 Indifferent 12.1% 4


79%

9%

12%

Is the DAMS an essential part of your work;low?

Yes

No

Indifferent


Figure 11. The pie chart below represents survey respondents’ opinions of their organizations’ digital asset management systems’ interfaces.

In your opinion, is the DAMS interface user-fr iendly?


Response Count

Extremely user-fr iendly 6.5% 2 Quite user-fr iendly 38.7% 12 Indifferent 12.9% 4 Slightly user-fr iendly 19.4% 6 Not user-fr iendly 22.6% 7


6%

39%

13%

19%

23%

In your opinion, is the DAMS interface user-‐friendly?

Extremely user-friendly

Quite user-friendly

Indifferent

Slightly user-friendly

Not user-friendly


Figure 12. The bar graph depicts how often survey respondents use their organizations’ digital asset management systems.

How often do you use the DAMS?


Response Count

Regularly throughout the day 64.5% 20 Once a day 16.1% 5 Every few days 0.0% 0 Once a week 0.0% 0 A few t imes a month 19.4% 6 A few t imes a year 0.0% 0


0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Regularly throughout the

day

Once a day Every few days Once a week A few times a month

A few times a year

How often do you use the DAMS?


Figure 13. The pie chart below depicts the workflow impact of the digital asset management systems for survey respondents.

Has the DAMS improved your workflow?


Response Count

Yes 74.2% 23 No 16.1% 5 Not sure 9.7% 3


74%

16%

10%

Has the DAMS improved your workflow?

Yes

No


Figure 14. The chart below represents survey respondents’ opinions of staff acceptance of their organizations’ digital asset management systems.

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being very low and 5 being very high, how would you rate staff acceptance of the DAMS?


Response Count

1 3.2% 1 2 16.1% 5 3 41.9% 13 4 16.1% 5 5 22.6% 7


1 2 3 4 5 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being very low and 5 being very high, how would you rate staff acceptance of the DAMS?


Figure 15. The chart below represents the likelihood of a survey respondent recommending a digital asset management system to other museum professionals or

museums.

How l ikely is i t that you would recommend a Digital Asset Management System to other museum professionals or museums?


Response Count

Extremely l ikely 67.7% 21 Moderately l ikely 16.1% 5 Indifferent 9.7% 3 Slightly l ikely 3.2% 1 Not at al l l ikely 3.2% 1


0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Extremely likely

Moderately likely

Indifferent

Slightly likely

Not at all likely

How likely is it that you would recommend a Digital Asset Management System to other museum professionals or

museums?

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