Volume 11 (2022-23)

Each volume of Journal of Digital Media Management consists of four 100-page issues published in both print and online. Articles scheduled for Volume 11 are available to view 'Forthcoming content' page.

The Articles published in Volume 11 include:

Volume 11 Number 4

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Papers
Whole-system preservation: The future of records transfers
Klaus Rechert and Euan Cochrane

Digital records have traditionally been transferred and subsequently preserved by exporting them from their source systems into individual files. After export, the files must be arranged, described and ingested into long-term preservation systems. Over time, the content in the files may also have to be migrated into newer formats. These steps are all time-consuming and costly, and as a result can be barriers to transfer. As many organisations cannot afford the cost of this process, there is a clear risk that their records will never be transferred to appropriate archives. There is also a risk that the steps described may alter the records, undermining their value as evidence and introducing issues of trust for the organisations involved. This paper discusses how recent work to develop the ability to emulate the servers and client computers needed to run large enterprise systems and keep them available on demand is providing a new option for addressing these challenges. With this new technology, organisations can leave records in their source systems and transfer working copies of entire systems to appropriate archives for long-term preservation. Leaving records in place also ensures that the existing documentation in source systems is retained, minimising the need to create additional documentation. The paper also discusses emerging technology that allows for the recording and re-execution of common processes within the preserved systems so that tasks such as finding and printing or exporting records can be semi-automated, further reducing long-term management costs.
Keywords: emulation; transfer; archives; digital preservation
Case study: A digital search tool for VRT’s film collection
Kathleen Bertrem, Marieke Lycke and Tom Vanderbiest

The film collection at VRT — the public broadcaster of the Flemish community in Belgium — includes around 108,000 titles, dating from 1953 to the 1980s. This paper describes how VRT Archive has made this collection digitally accessible and searchable. The paper explains how optical character recognition and field recognition were employed in the digitisation of film index cards in order to create a fully searchable database, and includes a summary of the lessons learned. Based on these lessons, VRT Archive is now ready for future digitisation projects.
Keywords: historical film collection; digitisation; preservation; information retrieval; optical character recognition; OCR; field recognition; smart capture; multimedia asset management; electronic information management
Reflections on digitising the tear sheets in the Walt Reed Illustration Archive
Andrea Degener and Skye Lacerte

The D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library is a repository of primary source materials that supports faculty scholarship and teaching in the field of visual culture. One of its cornerstone collections is the Walt Reed Illustration Archive, which consists of materials amassed at Illustration House, a business founded around collecting and selling key pieces of narrative art, in addition to related materials, of some of the most notable illustrators of the 20th century. The materials in this collection were used to create a publicly accessible digital collection of over 150,000 assets. Administrative metadata have been added to the collection, but work has been ongoing to enhance the descriptive metadata, which is crucial for research and discovery. Presently, only 30,000 records contain fully descriptive data. This paper discusses the challenges and successes of the project, as well as the innovative systems created to enhance image records and increase accessibility.
Keywords: archival collections; discovery; illustration; metadata; special collections
Reimagining access: Improving access to digital archives through participatory design
Elise Co, Robert Dirig, Joshua Halstead, Maggie Hendrie and Todd Masilko

The D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library is a repository of primary source materials that supports faculty scholarship and teaching in the field of visual culture. One of its cornerstone collections is the Walt Reed Illustration Archive, which consists of materials amassed at Illustration House, a business founded around collecting and selling key pieces of narrative art, in addition to related materials, of some of the most notable illustrators of the 20th century. The materials in this collection were used to create a publicly accessible digital collection of over 150,000 assets. Administrative metadata have been added to the collection, but work has been ongoing to enhance the descriptive metadata, which is crucial for research and discovery. Presently, only 30,000 records contain fully descriptive data. This paper discusses the challenges and successes of the project, as well as the innovative systems created to enhance image records and increase accessibility.
Keywords: archives; disability; interaction; human-centred design; participatory design
Lessons in outsourcing: Creating in-house digitisation infrastructure in Jewish heritage organisations
Devora Geller and Jill Strykowski

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research recently completed a multi-year project to digitise and make accessible online approximately 4.1 million pages of books and archival materials, pertaining to all aspects of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, which the organisation had collected in the period from 1925 until 1939. Initially, YIVO retained a corporate scanning vendor to handle digitisation and post-production work, but pivoted to opening an in-house digitisation lab to control rising costs and ensure ontime completion at the end of 2021. This paper discusses the reasons for choosing a corporate vendor, the factors that prompted the shift to opening an in-house lab, and the outcomes from successfully completing the project, especially in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Jewish heritage; digitisation workflow; digital preservation; quality assurance; training
Shrinking the world: Digitising the ‘world’s most experienced airline’ and creating an aviation portal for the Digital Public Library of America
Gabriella Williams, Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, Leah Tams, Scott Williams and Adriana J. Millares

In 2018, three peer institutions came together to digitise their respective collections related to Pan American World Airways, Inc., the self-proclaimed ‘world’s most experienced airline’. The institutions partnered with the Digital Public Library of America to engineer an innovative, subject-based portal related to commercial aviation, including a digital exhibit and primary source set. This paper discusses the challenges of creating such an innovative research tool, the lessons learned, and the overall sustainability of the project.
Keywords: Pan American World Airways; grant-funded digitisation; content aggregation; public history; digitisation; aviation history
The TailoredMedia Project: Taming the data beast
Christoph Bauer, Werner Bailer, Stefanie Größbacher and Peter Judmaier

The manual tagging of information such as persons, objects or places is a time-consuming task that typically needs trained archivists. This inefficient use of resources leads to disproportionately high resource consumption for a relatively small quantity of tagged material. The TailoredMedia project set out to reverse this problem by using machine learning to tag a high quantity of material and having archivists ensure the quality of the tagged information. This paper describes the integration of a set of analysis tools based on artificial intelligence (AI), along with focused research on specific tools (efficient scene classification, few-shot object detection, scene text detection). The paper also introduces Taylor — an avatar for the system’s AI capabilities, designed as part of the user interface to provide explanations and support the user’s work to validate annotations and search for content.
Keywords: AI-supported AV-mining; user-interfaces; support for research and annotation
Cross-functional workflows for digital projects in a small academic library: A case study
Rebecca Fried, Amanda Greenwood and Corinne Chatnik

In 2021, Union College’s Schaffer Library received a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant from the National Archives and Records Administration to digitise and make accessible a large, and highly requested, collection of materials from one of the institution’s most famous alumni, John Bigelow. Collaborating with the department of Special Collections and Archives, the department of Content and Digital Library Systems had to quickly transform workflows for what had been mostly ad hoc projects into workflows that supported production-level scanning, metadata and digital collection output. In service to this output, a search was made for a new digital space to accommodate the size and robust description of the collection. As Union is a small liberal arts college, the project team also hired an unorthodox group of people to handle and scan the archival material: their undergraduate students. This paper introduces the backgrounds of the collection and the grant; illustrates the various work plans and workflows of the processes; and discusses challenges and opportunities encountered along the way. Brief descriptions of concurrent digital projects related to the grant are also given.
Keywords: academic libraries; archives; digital access workflows; digital collections; digitisation; metadata; special collections

Volume 11 Number 3

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Papers
From conception to reality: Implementing a global digital asset management system that improves workflows and protects children
Micah Branaman, Communications Technical Director, World Vision International, et al.

This paper discusses the multi-year investment made by World Vision International (WVI) — the world’s largest child-focused non-governmental organisation — to transform its legacy content management system into a modern digital asset management (DAM) platform to help promote awareness and raise funds to enable WVI’s international relief, development and advocacy work. The system now houses 1 million photos, videos and stories, enabling WVI to share the experiences of the most vulnerable people from around the world with prospective donors, partners and the public, and has become an integral part of ongoing operations, playing a critical role during COVID-19 when travel was rendered impossible.
Keywords: organisational transformation; digitisation; agility; human-centred design; digital asset management; lessons learned
Transformation of the content life cycle at Edrington — The home of exceptional spirits
Megan de la Motte, Equator

This paper identifies and provides solutions to the challenges faced in digital asset management (DAM) within the context of a global premium spirits company. Through example use cases and reference to other studies, the paper explains the considerations to be addressed when transforming DAM from a static repository to a dynamic source system at the centre of media syndication. Assessment of the user requirements from the perspective of the brand content creators, digital asset management team and the end user (be it within the company, creative agencies, joint ventures or customers) is provided, and the approach to solving these differing needs explained. The paper provides insight into the early identification of potential issues around asset protection, the flexibility of taxonomy and how to future-proof a DAM system to ensure wider integrations are achievable with DAM as the one source of truth for media. Soft skills such as active listening and user empathy have proven to be an important part of the approach, therefore practical ways to improve these skills are suggested, including communication techniques and bringing stakeholders on the transformation journey to provide them with a clear vision of the future.
Keywords: transformation; integration; change management; empathy; collaboration; global; source of truth; business; users; skills; emotional quotient
Indexing with artificial intelligence: A case study of Asharq News
Kathey Battrick, Senior Manager, Library and Media Management, Asharq News Services

Two years ago, Asharq News began using artificial intelligence to index archived content, analysing around 1,600 hours of video assets per month to create multilingual metadata. This case study shares some insight into this project, touching on the requirements gathering process, assessing the output of the service, the challenges faced and the resources required to manage the archival process going forward.
Keywords: AI indexing; archive; digital asset management; media asset management; metadata
The importance of good-quality, user-focused metadata: How the Transport for London corporate archives benefit from voluntary standards and meaningful metadata
Tamara Thornhill, Corporate Archivist and Andrew Hyman, Academic Research and Data Outreach Manager, Transport for London

A good digital asset management (DAM) system will make the process of storing, sharing and tracking digital assets much easier. But is this all it should do? What about ensuring the discoverability of assets for years to come? What about rendering digital assets to users in an ever-evolving end-user computing environment? In other words, what about true digital preservation and the role of DAM? The answer lies in the metadata held in a system and what that system demands the asset creator provide. When considering the wider potential for metadata in the entire asset life cycle, is it necessary to alter the tradition of metadata being ‘data about data’ and go back to thinking of metadata as ‘data about the asset’? This paper looks at the challenges for successful information management created by the boom in born-digital assets and the ongoing conversion of hard-copy materials into digital formats. The value and role and criticality of high-quality, trusted and user-focused metadata in meeting these challenges is discussed through the exploration of standards and frameworks, and the use of case studies.
Keywords: metadata; standards; archiving; quality assurance; information management
Leveraging digital asset management to go global
James Kendley, Director of Digital Asset Management Services, Cricket Media Services

The organisational factors that enable digital asset management (DAM) teams to respond to immediate needs while simultaneously preparing to meet future goals are often external to the DAM team itself, for example: organisational values regarding the balance between immediate needs and long-term organisational objectives; the extent to which leadership has empowered the DAM team; and actionable stakeholder input in furtherance of organisational goals. This paper examines how such factors have allowed the DAM team at Cricket Media Holdings — a small transnational education company with a weak matrix organisation and a controlling project management office — to pursue its leadership’s vision of advancing education worldwide. Where the company’s execution of individual projects or initiatives has deviated from best practices, the paper provides an objective evaluation of remediation and outcomes.
Keywords: international; distribution; publishing; licensing; project management; education
Providing pageable access to born-digital materials at the Bancroft Library
Christina Velazquez Fidler, Digital Archivist, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

This paper describes the steps taken to provide access to born-digital archival material at the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library. It also explores the concept of pageable containers as it applies to born-digital archival materials and the challenges with existing systems and standards designed for digital material. In the context of providing access through existing integrated technical systems, the author describes the conceptual underpinnings of these systems and how by working collaboratively with stakeholders, creative solutions were developed for the purpose of providing access.
Keywords: access; born-digital archives; integrated systems; public services; stakeholder engagement; technical services
Case study: Using the DiAGRAM tool for digital preservation
David H. Underdown, Senior Digital Archivist, The National Archives

As part of the Safeguarding the Nation’s Digital Memory project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, project partners collaborated to produce a Bayesian network encapsulating digital preservation risks and the interactions between them. The integrated decision support system (IDSS) built around the Bayesian network was given the name DiAGRAM — a backronym for ‘Digital Archiving Graphical Risk Assessment Model’. In the words of the project mission, the IDSS allows archives ‘to investigate potential mitigations to digital preservation risks based on their own current circumstances, and communicate the relative effectiveness of different strategies (and the costs of different strategies) to relevant decision makers, funders and other stakeholders in an easy-tounderstand way. This will allow archives to evidence their requests for support based on a rigorous model which will have been developed using the experience of a wide range of institutions’. This case study examines how DiAGRAM can be used to achieve that objective.
Keywords: risk modelling; digital preservation; Bayesian networks; advocacy
History, technology and hard work: A field guide to digitising a large garment collection at a small institution
Amanda Cacich, CLIR Grant Curator/Stylist, Haggerty Library & Learning Commons, Mount Mary University, et al.

The Fashion Archive at Mount Mary University is a treasure trove of 10,000 garments and accessories spanning over two centuries. Throughout its history it has supported the fashion design degree programme at Mount Mary, and the digitisation and online exhibition of its contents continues and broadens that tradition. This paper describes the grant-funded process that was developed to digitise a portion of the Fashion Archive and make it available online as the Digital Fashion Archive. The process includes selecting, preparing, photographing, improving the physical storage of, creating metadata for, and uploading images of garments and accessories. It also addresses the significant preparatory steps underpinning current workflows, including the setup of photography equipment and software and the process of choosing an online exhibition platform.
Keywords: digitisation; garments; fashion; fashion archive; 360° photography

Volume 11 Number 2

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Papers
A collaborative approach for the registration, deposit and digitisation of Flemish film heritage
Brecht Declercq, Digitization and Acquisition Manager, meemoo, et al.

This paper discusses the collaboration between meemoo (the Flemish Institute for the Archives) and the Royal Belgian Film Archive with regard to the registration, conservation and digitisation of film heritage preserved by Flemish libraries, archives, museums, performing arts organisations, government bodies and city archives. The paper begins with a detailed description of the various pain points identified in a 2013 report on the state of Flemish audiovisual heritage conservation, including inter alia the fragmentation in film heritage management, the lack of specific attention for film collections, the lack of infrastructure and content-related and technical knowledge and poor storage conditions. It then focuses on the eight-step approach developed by meemoo and the Royal Belgian Film Archive, which culminates in large-scale digitisation projects and encouraging the reuse of the digitised films. After discussing some interim results of the collaboration, the article concludes that partnerships such as the one discussed facilitate an efficient, effective and affordable approach to the preservation and digitisation of diverse and dispersed film collections on a regional scale, thus providing a solid base for further conservation and digitisation.
Keywords: film, registration, Flanders, audiovisual heritage, digitisation, preservation
Developing a central, user-tested content hub at Cancer Research UK
Thomas Alexander, Taxonomy Manager, Cancer Research UK

This paper describes the work that Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has done within its digital asset management (DAM) system, with respect to taxonomy, findability and the classification of assets. CRUK uses taxonomy to classify web and enterprise content, some of which it shares in its DAM system. As part of the organisation’s shift towards a more user-centred approach, CRUK investigated whether words used elsewhere in the organisation could be reused in the DAM system. Following previous success using card sorting, tree tests and guerrilla testing to refine digital products, these same methods were used to refine classification structures in the DAM system. Takeaways from this paper include understanding the importance of user research, relevant testing methods and reliance on fact rather than supposition to make decisions about classification words and structures. The paper concludes that the best way to improve user satisfaction is to start by consulting very people who use the DAM product.
Keywords: DAM, taxonomy, user testing, collaboration, card sorting, tree testing
Collaboration in isolation: Migrating legacy finding aids during a pandemic
Brianna Gormly, Assistant Director for Preservation Reformatting and Metadata, Columbia University Libraries and Louise LoBello, Digital & Special Collections Librarian, Franklin & Marshall College, Martin Library of the Sciences

This paper describes a project conducted at Franklin & Marshall College Archives and Special Collections (A&SC) to migrate legacy archival finding aids to ArchivesSpace. This project, completed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, required project team members to address not only user needs for the online discovery of collections, but also the gaps between legacy finding aids and modern archival standards. This paper discusses how these concerns manifested in specific data clean-up issues and the strategies — and compromises — developed to address them. The paper also describes how workflows were developed, implemented and revised in the pandemic context. In particular, it details how the work of both A&SC staff and staff from other library units was leveraged to complete the project successfully. The case study provides insights on successes and lessons learned related to communication in a remote work project. Finally, the paper discusses the impact of the project on work in A&SC today.
Keywords: data migration, archival description, remote work, COVID-19 pandemic, ArchivesSpace
Case study: How the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is migrating a century’s worth of collections into a media asset management system
Christine Cadotte, MISt, Manager — Metadata Governance and Rebecca Efrat, MLIS Senior Analyst — Content Tracking, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Since 1936, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has been broadcasting to Canadians from coast to coast. Starting with radio and then expanding to television and digital platforms, the CBC has amassed a large collection of legacy media and is continuously producing more. Out of the desire to consolidate the archival and contemporary content, optimise current workflows and adapt to the shifting technological and media landscape, the media asset management (MAM) project was born. This paper outlines some of the many unique challenges and opportunities that were faced as the CBC implemented a MAM system while continuing to distribute news, current affairs and entertainment content to the Canadian public.
Keywords: public broadcasting, archives, digitisation, media production, automation, data migration, MAM, metadata
Building a transnational image database: Case study of the Dispersed Chinese Art Digitization Project digital collections
Carol Ng-He, Digital Collections Curator, Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago

The Dispersed Chinese Art Digitization Project (DCADP) is a collaborative international initiative carried out by the University of Chicago’s Center for the Art of East Asia and Xi’an Jiaotong University in China to digitally capture dispersed sculptures and mural fragments that were originally inside caves, temples and funerary complexes in China. By researching the history of the art and architecture of these cultural sites and using digital imaging technologies and creating digital reconstructions to place the dispersed sculptures back in their original environments, researchers and the public will have a better and more comprehensive understanding of Chinese culture. The goal of the DCADP database is to record and preserve such important born-digital materials, ranging from photographs, three-dimensional object scans, multimedia files and related textual references. This article explains the background and goals of the DCADP research and elaborates on the process of the early-stage planning of the DCADP database, and the challenges encountered. The author concludes with three key takeaways from the experiences, including being adaptable, experimenting with bilingual metadata and engaging in the community of learning.
Keywords: art history, collaborative research, Chinese art and architecture, digital collections, dispersed cultural heritage, virtual reconstruction
The importance of meaningful metadata for video archives and media asset management
Spencer Wilson, Operations & Broadcast Services Manager, Australian Football League

Over the years, the Australian Football League (AFL) Video Production team has looked to evolve the way its physical collection of historical video content is stored and accessed, to ensure it is preserved in perpetuity. This article describes the history of the AFL’s digital archive, emphasising the importance of assigning meaningful metadata in order to make this rich collection of sporting moments usable in a variety of ways while safeguarding it for use well into the future.
Keywords: archive, videotape, metadata, film, preservation, digitisation, sport
The first heritage video stored on DNA: A case study on the future of digital storage
Jan Müller, Chief Executive Officer, Netherlands Regional Public Broadcasting Organisation and Yasmin Meichtry, Associate Director, Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage

It has been projected that by 2025, humanity will have outgrown its capacity to store the large volumes of data it creates. To compound matters, it will not be long before the storage of data on spinning or solid-state drives is no longer sustainable, economically viable or environmentally responsible. DNA storage has the potential to vastly exceed capacity for writing to disk and tape, but with dramatically smaller physical space and energy requirements, and far greater stability. This paper will demonstrate the potential of DNA as an archival storage mechanism by describing how the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage — the body responsible for managing the International Olympic Committee’s audiovisual archive — collaborated with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, to store heritage video data on synthetic DNA, resulting in a world-first for archives.
Keywords: DNA, storage, archives, innovation, heritage, audiovisual, digitisation
The process of developing a strategic plan for a special collections and university archives
Mary Weppler-Van Diver, Special Collections and University Archives Faculty Librarian, California State University

Strategic planning is a valuable process that can be done by lead or lone programme archivists and librarians to provide direction for programming and projects. This paper describes the process of developing a five-year strategic plan for a special collections and university archives unit within the Library of California State University, Stanislaus. The initial idea for the plan was conceived by the unit librarian following an extensive two-year renovation of the library building. The purpose of the plan is to provide direction to the newly renovated unit’s programming and core functions of collection control, research services, digitisation and preservation. As this paper will discuss, the strategic plan is informed by best-practice guidelines from the archives’ profession as well as by the overarching mission and vision of the unit’s parent organisation, California State University, Stanislaus. The plan also takes into consideration the unique character and strengths of the unit’s collections. In addition to providing strategic direction, the plan has been developed to make the best use of the unit’s limited resources.
Keywords: strategic planning, archives, libraries, special collections, academic libraries, space utilisation, archives, administration
A role by any other name: A content analysis of digital asset management on library and archives job boards
Dana Reijerkerk, Knowledge Management and Digital Assets Librarian and Kristen J. Nyitray, Director, Special Collections and University Archives, University Archivist, Stony Brook University Libraries

A digital asset manager curates the sum of an institution’s knowledge in the form of digital assets. A cursory review of job advertisements reinforces the ubiquity of digital asset management (DAM) in library and archival contexts. However, it also reveals great variability in how this specialised work is articulated in advertisements, the credentials sought by employers and the salaries offered. This study assesses the state, scope and attributes of DAM positions using a content analysis of 98 unique job advertisements for DAM positions collected from library and archive job boards over a six-month period. Voyant, an open source text analysis tool, was utilised to yield word and phrase frequencies to aid interpretation of scope of work, position expectations and education requirements. The results provide insights to aid organisations in recruiting DAM librarians and archivists, guide students in forging career paths in DAM, and inform development of the DAM curriculum in higher education. To meet the needs of the field, the authors recommend clarity in DAM job scopes, developing technological and personnel capacity to support the work, and calibrating compensation among employment sectors to elevate the importance of the work and promote equity across the profession.
Keywords: digital asset management, libraries, archives, position descriptions, job advertisements, hiring

Volume 11 Number 1

Editorial
Simon Beckett, Publisher
Papers
Artificial intelligence powered digital asset management: Current state and future potential
Kristina Huddart, Digital Asset Management Consultant, Huddart Consulting

This paper examines the current application and primary use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) in digital asset management (DAM), what to consider before diving into AI and the potential future applications of AI in DAM and content operations. To supplement the extensive research conducted for this paper, the paper provides commentary from 12 DAM vendors who were interviewed regarding the current state of AI in DAM as well as future innovations being considered by DAM suppliers. The review finds that the application of AI by DAM vendors is fragmented and still in an early experimental stage. Use cases for DAM end users are often industry and asset-type specific, making it difficult for DAM vendors to anticipate which AI integrations will provide the most value to their various customers. Despite these challenges, this paper concludes that the advanced adoption and application of AI will bring new value to the creative, content and marketing industries in ways yet to be seen.
Keywords: artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital asset management, asset recognition, metadata, workflow management, data and analytics
Applying new standards to old data: Wrangling metadata in a sports archive
Rachel Mandell, Audiovisual Archivist, FIFA Audiovisual Archive

In today’s archival landscape, advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence are being increasingly adopted. But advanced technology can only do so much. This case study describes how International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) conducted a careful assessment of its metadata management practices and future needs, and implemented a terminology management system (TMS) to manage specific terminology and impose standards to improve the effectiveness of the metadata in its audiovisual archive. Although exploiting this new TMS to its full capacity will be an iterative process, by investing the effort now, the FIFA Audiovisual Archive can gain full control over its metadata and be better prepared to adopt new tools and workflows in the future.
Keywords: metadata, audiovisual archive, sports archive, terminology management system, media asset management, media
Refining the process: An institutional approach to preparing projects for digitisation
Marcia McIntosh, Digital Production Librarian and Jacob Mangum, Project Development Librarian, University of North Texas

Over several years of managing digital projects, librarians at the University of North Texas Libraries have refined their knowledge management and digitisation operations to realise gains in efficiency and error reduction, and to provide a more fluid imaging workflow for staff and student workers. This paper describes the opportunities identified in pre-processing projects and front-loading decision-making for physical collections.
Keywords: project management, digitisation, digital workflow, project preparation, documentation, standards
Designing elegant metadata
Stephanie Lemieux, President and Principal Consultant, Dovecot Studio and Romney Whitehead, Director, Borrowed Insight

The advancement of digital asset management technologies, the need for integrated content systems and the huge proliferation of digital assets require equal advancements in the design and use of metadata to manage those assets. Alongside this, the importance of metadata within businesses is now being recognised as equal to content. To leverage their metadata, organisations must ensure the data are well organised, well managed, adopted and owned. Finding the perfect middle ground between simple systems and basic tags, through to complex multifunctional and multidimensional metadata management is challenging. The many difficulties can result in metadata being neglected and end users becoming disengaged. Creating elegant metadata means designing solutions that balance complex needs in a simple yet powerful way, thus making them more effective. This paper will discuss the ways in which metadata can be made elegant, and in turn become a valuable tool for users and business. To support the adoption and use of metadata, the paper also discusses how to avoid common pitfalls associated with the creation of metadata.
Keywords: metadata design, metadata modelling, metadata management, taxonomy, user experience, system interoperability, change management
Virtual exhibits and museums: How digital asset management rises to meet the challenges
Dione Surdez, Archivist-in-Residence, Origami Air Co.

Enhancing exhibits to increase collections access through online or virtual environments challenges museums and other cultural heritage institutions to expand upon existing digital asset management (DAM) workflows. Museum DAM managers are similarly challenged to implement DAM technical needs for new exhibit file structures. This paper addresses how DAM practitioners can utilise innovation and best practices to realise a return on investment through a flexible or contorted DAM system.
Keywords: access, digital asset management, DAM, GLAM, museum, virtual exhibition, workflows
Reconsidering silos
Tammy Troup, Digital Preservation Librarian, Iowa State University Library, et al.

While organisational silos are often viewed as an obstacle to overcome, this paper argues that they are a necessary feature of the workplace environment and should instead be approached in a manner that maximises their potential. This case study describes an approach used by three specialised areas at an academic library — cataloguing and metadata services, digital collections and digital preservation — to retrospectively manage the technical debt incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the sudden shift to remote work, library workers developed an action plan to continue an in-process migration with minimal disruption; however, this necessary action significantly exacerbated an already complex file storage system. Although retrospective management of technical debt can be complicated by the management needs of multiple stakeholders, staff members in several areas of specialisation approached the project by identifying needs related to the subcategories of a digital object entity — the intellectual entity, representation entity, file entity and bitstream entity — and developed high-level solutions to meet these needs. This approach exposed three types of silos (context, schemas and processes) and related communication challenges, which can complicate cross-team collaboration. Yet by reconsidering organisational silos as interconnected units of specialisation, staff members successfully applied specialised knowledge, advocated for their management needs and collaborated to resolve the technical debt.
Keywords: professional specialisation, communication in organisations, teams in the workplace, academic libraries, digital preservation, organisational effectiveness
Using an IIIF as trunk approach to digital collections delivery: Case study of the Rising from the Ashes Oral History Project
Mark Patrick Baggett, Head, Digital Initiatives, University of Tennessee Libraries and Emily Gore, Assistant Dean, Digital Initiatives and Technology Infrastructure, The University of Tennessee

Rising from the Ashes: The Chimney Tops 2 Wildfires Oral History Project is a project led by the University of Tennessee Libraries in collaboration with the City of Gatlinburg and the Anna Porter Public Library. The community-based oral history project documents the immediate and ongoing impacts of the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 wildfires, one of the largest natural disasters in Tennessee history, by recording interviews with individuals who experienced the wildfires or their aftermath. The interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish and comprise a mix of both video and audio-only recordings. While transitioning to a new repository system, the team decided to develop a stand-alone solution leveraging the IIIF presentation version 3 application programming interface for serving the oral histories. This paper describes the project and the team’s experience implementing the project to this new specification.
Keywords: IIIF, International Image Interoperability Framework, oral history, A/V