Digital Asset Management: Content Architectures, Project Management, and Creating Order out of Media Chaos

Digital Asset Management: Content Architectures, Project Management, and Creating Order out of Media Chaos

Released April 2014
Publisher(s): Apress
ISBN: 9781430263760

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Book description

Digital Asset Management: Content Architectures, Project Management, and Creating Order out of Media Chaos is for those who are planning a digital asset management system or interested in becoming digital asset managers. This book explains both the purpose of digital asset management systems and why an organization might need one. The text then walks readers step-by-step through the concerns involved in selecting, staffing, and maintaining a DAM. This book is dedicated to providing you with a solid base in the common concerns, both legal and technical, in launching a complex DAM capable of providing visual search results and workflow options.

Containing sample job models, case studies, return on investment models, and quotes from many top digital asset managers, this book provides a detailed resource for the vocabulary and procedures associated with digital asset management. It can even serve as a field guide for system and implementation requirements you may need to consider.

This book is not dedicated to the purchase or launch of a DAM; instead it is filled with the information you need in order to examine digital asset management and the challenges presented by the management of visual assets, user rights, and branded materials. It will guide you through justifying the cost for deploying a DAM and how to plan for growth of the system in the future. This book provides the most useful information to those who find themselves in the bewildering position of formulating access control lists, auditing metadata, and consolidating information silos into a very new sort of workplace management tool – the DAM.

The author, Elizabeth Ferguson Keathley, is a board member of the DAM Foundation and has chaired both the Human Resources and Education committees. Currently Elizabeth is working with the University of British Columbia and the DAM Foundation to establish the first official certificate program for Digital Asset Managers. She has written, taught, and been actively a part of conferences related to the arrangement, description, preservation and access of information for over ten years. Her ongoing exploration of digital asset management and its relationship to user needs can be followed at her homepage for Atlanta Metadata Authority : atlantametadata.com.

What you'll learn

  • The difference between DAMs, CMSs, and WCMs

  • How to identify the need for a DAM, and how to conduct a needs assessment

  • Why there is no single best DAM solution for every need

  • How to discuss servers, hosting, and storage with your vendors and IT staff

  • How to hire staff or create positions for digital asset managers

  • How to survey and appraise collections and systems for DAM integration

  • How a search engine within a DAM actually works

  • How to establish reportable metrics for you DAM, including ROI figures

  • How to migrate collections for digital preservation and protection

  • Why rights management and brand management are two sides of the same DAM coin

  • Why DAM workflows will change the modern workplace for the better

    • Who this book is for

  • Anyone who creates, uses, or searches for visual information in digital form

  • Librarians and Archivists interested in the future of digital preservation and access

  • Information Science Students and Professionals

  • CIOs and CEOs of companies with a large volume of visual assets

  • IT staff who need to understand what digital asset managers do all day

  • Graphic Designers, Photographers, and other creative people involved with image generation and storage

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    Table of contents

    1. Title Page
    2. Dedication
    3. Contents at a Glance
    4. Contents
    5. About the Author
    6. About the Technical Reviewer
    7. Acknowledgments
    8. Foreword
    9. CHAPTER 1: Introduction to DAM
      1. Twenty-Five Years Ago, Email Was New
      2. This Book Is an Introduction Itself
      3. Conclusion
    10. CHAPTER 2: When It’s Time for a DAM: Identifying a Need
      1. Why Do We Need a DAM? 
      2. What Do You Want to Do with a DAM? 
      3. Building Your Argument for DAM
      4. Conclusion
    11. CHAPTER 3: Choosing the Right DAM Solution
      1. Why There Is No One Best DAM
      2. Types of DAMs
      3. DAM Support Determines the DAM Software
      4. Case Study: A Photographer Needs VPN Access to a Secure DAM
      5. Conclusions
    12. CHAPTER 4: Where Your DAM Lives
      1. Servers, Hosting, and Storage
      2. Conclusions
    13. CHAPTER 5: Staffing for a DAM
      1. Finding Successful Digital Asset Managers
      2. How Are Digital Asset Managers Paid?
      3. Who Manages the Digital Asset Managers?
      4. Main Roles in Daily Work
      5. Where to Find Great Contractors
      6. Conclusions
    14. CHAPTER 6: Assets to Manage—You Can’t Drink the Ocean
      1. Asset Types
      2. How Complex Multimedia Files Are Handled Within Item Types
      3. Deciding How to Manage Assets and Expectations
      4. Static Versus Living Assets
      5. Versioning
      6. Bringing It All Together
    15. CHAPTER 7: Creating and Accessing Assets
      1. Making DAM Usable
      2. Conclusions
    16. CHAPTER 8: Finding Assets
      1. Basic Metadata and Search Strategies
      2. Conclusions
    17. CHAPTER 9: Describing and Searching Mass Sets
      1. Taking in All the Assets
      2. Capturing Metadata from Creation Sources
      3. Case Study: The Importance of the Immediate Event
      4. Detailed Searching and Granularity
      5. Conclusion
    18. CHAPTER 10: Big Data and Bigger Control Issues
      1. Content Audit and Determining Metrics
      2. Determining Metrics and ROI
      3. User Metrics
      4. System Metrics
      5. User Interface Metrics
      6. Auditing and Big Data
      7. Conclusion
    19. CHAPTER 11: Building Successful Workflows
      1. What Makes a DAM Workflow Successful?
      2. Workflow Implementation Tools End Information Silos
      3. Sample Workflow: Photo Ingest, Selection, Retouching, and Approval
      4. Conclusions
    20. CHAPTER 12: Moving Assets into a New System
      1. Digital Preservation and Content Migration Strategies
      2. Case Study: Three Migrations and a Metadata Model
      3. Conclusions
    21. CHAPTER 13: Brand and Rights Management
      1. Two Sides of the Same Licensed Coin
      2. Conclusions
    22. CHAPTER 14: DAM Is the Future of Work
      1. Systems Will Mature at the Pace That Management Sets
      2. Identify Needs and Meet Them
      3. Find Your Best Balance in Security and Storage Issues
      4. Economic Concerns, Rights Management, and Lawyers
      5. The Future of DAMs
      6. Conclusion
    23. CHAPTER 15: Glossary of Terms
    24. CHAPTER 16: Bibliography
    25. Index

    Product information

    • Title: Digital Asset Management: Content Architectures, Project Management, and Creating Order out of Media Chaos
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: April 2014
    • Publisher(s): Apress
    • ISBN: 9781430263760