Phil Spiegel shares the basic principles, workflows, best practices and tools available, as well strategies for various types of digital/media projects.

1. Digital Asset Management &
Archival Preservation
Philip Spiegel
Senior Director, Content Management Operations

2. LAC Group markets
Trusted source for diverse clientele
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Media and entertainment
Education
Law
Business
Government

3. Approach
• Scalable solutions that merge technology, tools, workflow
processes and best practices.
• Project plans for content management, business and monetization
needs.
• Content in any form, including still and moving images, audio,
documents, design files, artifacts and other assets.
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4. What is DAM?
Enabling tool that changes how users interact with digital
archives and archived content by centralizing access to
assets.
• Platform for efficient and effective collaboration
• Management of shared assets across an organization
• Tool that enables access and use / re-use assets in new smart, nimble,
productive and creative ways
• Virtual archive environment that energizes projects to digitize fragile
physical assets
– Illuminates dark content within archives
– Reduces unnecessary handling by eliminating need to circulate fragile
originals

5. So many acronyms
• Digital Asset Management (DAM)
– Hardware/software platform for organizing, storing and retrieving
media and managing digital rights and permissions.
– Rich media assets may include: photos, music, videos, animations,
graphics, logos, art, audio, podcasts and other multimedia content
• Media Asset Management (MAM)
– Same as DAM but focused on support of media assets like video
digitized film and audio.

6. But wait…there’s more:
– Physical Asset Management (PAM)
– Production Asset Management (PAM)
– Brand Asset Management (BAM)
– Library Asset Management (LAM)
– Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
– Marketing Content Management (MCM)
Acronyms vary but generally common purpose and philosophy
So many acronyms

7. DAM workflow considerations
• Digitization of original physical assets not born-digital
• Ingestion / uploading
• Structured and searchable metadata / keywords
• Diverse range of asset data
• Search, view, order / download, annotate, share
• Storage and restoration
• Reporting / analysis

8. DAM technology considerations
Onsite
– Need to build / house all hardware and integrate within greater IT
environment.
– Considerations include:
• Available space, environment, power, security, connectivity
• Hardware / software maintenance and upgrades
• High start-up costs depending on scale
• Support resources for upgrades, troubleshooting, etc.
• On-going operational and capital costs
Higher cost of ownership but greater flexibility, control and customization

9. DAM technology considerations
Cloud-based or software-as-a-service
– Web-based
– Fee-based, by volume or users or both
– Fixed monthly costs, no significant start-up or capital costs
– No internal hardware
– No additional in-house tech support resources
– Service provider manages on-going maintenance, upgrades and
continuity of service
– Template-based look, feel and functionality with some customization
– Can be a quick way to get started

10. Metadata
Without good metadata, your digital asset is a
grain of sand at the bottom of the ocean
– Define your metadata
– Determine who will capture it and how/when it will be captured
– Determine standards, style and minimum requirements
– Identify goals, objectives and expectations:
• Drive workflow automation?
• Integrate with other systems?

11. Types of metadata
• Technical – Often captured by recording device.
• Transactional – Relates to the processing facts about an asset.
• Foundational – Refers to the essence of the asset, inventory record
• Contextual / Content – Description, the “about-ness”

12. Long term considerations of digital archives
• Updates to prevent obsolescence
– Software upgrades
– Hardware support
– Overall system health
• Do in-house or by your service provider
• The responsibility of digital storage is…forever
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13. DAM is more than technology
• Success comes from pairing technology with good practices
• It’s about the how’s and why’s and the results
• Focused on workflow and operations
• Intuitive, simple user experience, regardless of complexity behind
the scenes
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14. Getting started with DAM
• Collaborate on requirements with key stakeholders
– Clear and agreed-upon goals and priorities
• Document existing workflow or business need
– Each step, process, hand-off, resources
– Efficiencies and inefficiencies
– Consider current state assessment and recommendations from
knowledgeable DAM consultant
• Draft DAM requirements document
– Practical and realistic
– Separate “Must-haves” from “Nice to haves”
– Avoid scope-creep

15. Getting started with DAM
• Vendor research
• Request for Information (RFI) or Request for Proposal (RFP)
• Reduce field to contenders
– Obtain client references
– Consider vendor support reputation / experience
• Plan implementation project

16. Don’t neglect the basics
• What do you want to do?
• What are current business / archive / information needs?
• What are future needs and expectations?
• How will this benefit your operation?
• What is the funding and what is the ROI?
• Who are the key stakeholders and benefactors?
• What is the best way to gain maximum impact?
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17. Why librarians make great DAM managers
• Success of DAM projects require library skills and best practices
• Librarians understand how to develop and maintain robust,
standardized metadata
• Order to the chaos and transparency into the depths of the
collection’s assets
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18. Closing thoughts
• Users expect fingertip / desktop access to archive content
• Over-arching approaches are similar across different environments
but details tend to be specific to operations and culture
• DAM may be part of a bigger enterprise asset management
solution or a division-specific application
• DAM is an easy idea tied around a complicated solution
– Get the right people involved to be on the road to success
– It’s not just having the asset …it’s being able to find it and know what
you can do with it
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19. Philip Spiegel
Senior Director
Content Management Operations
Contact us
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About Phil
• Over 20 years experience managing large commercial
and broadcast media archives
• Experience with broadcast, production and media
library operations
• Fluent in technical, operational and business
challenges of complex enterprise-wide DAM initiatives
• Previous experience includes National Geographic,
Getty Images, Image Bank and Corbis Motion
• Frequent speaker on digital asset management,
workflows and media archive management
• Member of AMIA and SMPTE