practical examples of a dam implementation: daniel burt
DESCRIPTION
The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford was used as a Case Study by Consultant Daniel Burt when he spoke at the Collections Trust DAM for Museums Conference in November 2013. His PowerPoint presentation covers the capture, cataloguing, storage and delivery of images and audio content.TRANSCRIPT
Digital Asset Management for Museums
Pitt Rivers Museum Case Study
27 November 2013The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London
http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/events/dam2013
Daniel BurtUniversity of Oxford / Sunnymedia Ltd
My background
• Apple Engineer
• Filemaker Developer
• Medical Sciences work
• Publishing work
• Collections work
What is Digital Asset Management?
• Method for storing and retrieving digital assets
• At a basic level this can simply be an organised folder structure
• Often need to link supporting metadata to these assets
• In the context of the PRM assets include…
Digital Images
Pictures of Objects and scans of the Photograph Collections, as well as pictures of events held at the museum
Larger TIFF or RAW files for archival storage and compressed JPEG or PNG versions as working copies.
Video Files
Videos of events at the museum, film archive collections, education videos, and videos for research projects
Original camera recordings, files from Final Cut Pro, and final output files (mp4s) for delivery
Audio Files
Recordings of events at the museum, ethnographic sound archive, and education recordings
Original media, master WAV files from digitisation, and mp3 working copies
Numbers
• Objects database – 235,000 records• Photographs database – 175,000 records
• The DIA currently contains over 120,000 images, accounting for about 30% of Objects
• The Photographs database contains about 85,000 images, with up to 3 versions of each photo, giving a current total of about 250,000 images
DAM @ PRM - Overview• Link to and enhance existing collections
management databases
• One-to-many relationship between records and digital assets
• Centralized archival storage
• Delivery to internal and external users
DAM @ PRM - Main Steps
• STEP ONE - Capture
• STEP TWO - Cataloguing
• STEP THREE - Storage
• STEP FOUR - Delivery
DAM @ PRM - Capture
• Future-proofing assets– Standard non-proprietary file types
• Ensuring high quality assets– Uncompressed archival versions of assets (WAV files,
TIFFs, AV files etc.)
• Working versions– Versions for online delivery adhering to HTML5
standards
DAM @ PRM – Image Capture
Scans of films and transparencies use Hasselblad scanners
Scans of prints done using Epson flatbed scanners
Digital images are taken by the museum’s photographer, or by collections management team using DSLR cameras
DAM @ PRM – Image Capture
Many images are scanned from existing slides (lantern slides, 35mm etc.), and new digital images are also being taken of objects. Slides, negatives and prints are scanned and saved as TIFF files.
The DAM system assigns filenames for these images in order to link them to the database records.
DAM @ PRM – Image Capture
DAM @ PRM – Audio Capture
• Physical media capture outsourced (wax cylinders BL, other media to a local specialist)
• Field recordings and local events via digital recorders or direct to computer
DAM @ PRM – Video Capture
• Physical media capture outsourced
• Events generally filmed by professional companies
• Education team uses Sony ‘prosumer’ DV cameras
DAM @ PRM - Cataloguing
Photograph Collections are catalogued in the main Photographs database
Images of Objects are catalogued in the DIA and linked to the main Objects database
Audio files are catalogued in the main Sound database
DAM @ PRM – Cataloguing Photos
DAM @ PRM – Cataloguing Objects
DAM @ PRM – Cataloguing Audio
DAM @ PRM – Storage
DAM script assigns the asset’s filename, and transfers the archival copy to the museum’s RAID storage.
A second step creates JPEG versions of the image and transfers these to the web server that feeds these assets into the internal and online databases
DAM @ PRM - Storage
• RAID (internal access only) – backup to HFS
• ‘Live’ assets stored on web server – backed up to HFS
• Cloud storage?
DAM @ PRM – Delivery
Assets are delivered via standard web technology to the internal databases and their online equivalents.
All images are visible internally, whereas only those marked as ‘for web’ are shown online.
DAM @ PRM – Delivery
DAM @ PRM – Delivery
DAM @ PRM – Delivery
DAM @ PRM - Delivery
Delivery via project-specific websites
Incorporation of assets into researchers’ blogs etc.
Possible due to standardization of asset storage (URLs), allowing for easy re-use of assets.
DAM @ PRM - Delivery
DAM @ PRM - Delivery
DAM @ PRM – The Future?
Storage of files in the cloud would take away the need for internal security and backups
Amazon Cloud, dropbox, box, or other commercial providers?
An affordable and easily manageable solution for smaller institutions
My other current projects
Leverhulme funded BACH project and mapping
Wellcome Trust funded ALHOM and collaborative online asset creation
Two AHRC projects:
• Dirhams for Slaves
• OCIANA
