Moderator: Marianne Colgrove
Director of Web Support Services, Reed College
June 6, 2005
Digital asset management involves three primary components: (a) a repository
for digital materials and associated metadata; (b) processes for scanning
and cataloguing objects; and (c) presentation tools that enable students
and faculty to use the digital materials. During the past year we investigated
all three aspects of digital asset management in teaching and research.
In order to share our findings with others and collaborate on an evaluation
of product offerings, we hosted a regional workshop
for
library, visual resources, and information technology staff. The workshop
was held June 6, 2005 at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. A web site
describing the event is located at: http://www.reed.edu/digital_asset_mgmt/dam_vendor_day.html
Invitations to the event, which was co-sponsored by the Murdock Trust,
were sent to representatives of NWACC as well as to the members of
the
Orbis
Cascade
Alliance library consortium. In all, there
were forty-six participants representing eighteen colleges and universities
in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
The program included demonstrations of two commercial systems — CONTENTdm
and Luna Insight – as well as two university-developed, open-source systems — James
Madison University’s MDID and Princeton University’s Almagest.
The speakers gave live demonstrations of their products, showing how to
build image collections and how to use various tools for presentation and
study.
The presenters also talked about their future development plans. Feedback
from participants indicated that the workshop was extremely successful
in allowing
them to examine and compare several promising systems. While the commercial
products are somewhat more polished, the university-developed systems had
better tools for studying and manipulating content. In this regard, the
session proved
informative for the vendors as well as the attendees.