In the glimmer days back in the early 90’s when the world was transitioning from analog to digital I saw an opportunity.
One of my clients a major textbook publisher whom I worked had a few problems with their handling of media; photos and art work. They were not unique, most all publishers at the time wrestled with this problem. What to do with it!
One of my hats is a photographer and when returning some slides (yes this does date me) the publisher returned them out of their protective pages, all loose in a pile in an assistants hands. Big, big mistake. All the slides had been scratched. If the client had not been such a good one I could have requested payment for each and ever slide that they ruined. Well over $30,000.00 at the time. When leaving I noticed that most every hall had boxes in them some with art work and photos. Overflow from the cubicles they said. Opportunity knocks.
Back at my office I typed up a proposal on my computer, the wonderful IBM Model 25, with two floppy drives and no HD. One page and six months later a new job inside the largest health care publisher in the world.
What I learned and still am learning is part of Digital Curator.
I will in this space share some the experiences, and try to help share some of the knowledge.
Wednesday
DAM, dam, dam if only
DAM in this world of digital archives is Digital Asset Management.
DAM systems need curators. Curators do not necessary need DAM.
For a DAM system to work and work well several factors have to happen.
How to put our assets in will be detailed in future posts.
DAM systems need curators. Curators do not necessary need DAM.
For a DAM system to work and work well several factors have to happen.
- What is the need for the archive/workflow.
- Is it a static a true archive
- Or an active workflow with an archive at it’s backend.
- What is being archived
- Office documents
- Analog conversions needed?
- Art, photos, video and music files.
- Where will the archive reside.
- Who needs to see it and how often.
- How long does it need to live. Yes some archives are short lived and others need to live for a very long time. In those cases the archive is reborn every few years from Optical Drives to CD to DVD to HD to …
How to put our assets in will be detailed in future posts.
Effective technology
In my corporate days I had the opportunity to represent my company in corporate initiative to share assets between all the media groups/companies within the mega corporation.
The initiative hired several very high end leaders from hardware and software companies. The idea was to share all assets between the groups. Nice idea, terrible execution.
The wonks all wanted a big, expensive “system”. This system was so burdened and complicated that after months of meetings the sole benefit that I saw was an attractive opening screen.
What did happen in the background is that many of us had our own system in place within our company. Ours was a cross pollinated Filemaker and Portfolio database. While not as sexy as others it did provide us with a digital box to put assets into and get them out of.
What was especially gratifying about our workflow was that our software was used out of the box with very little custom work done to it. It provided not only a system for archiving but also for workflow.
So when you are faced with an archiving or workflow issue use what works and then determine if you need to use spend more.
The initiative hired several very high end leaders from hardware and software companies. The idea was to share all assets between the groups. Nice idea, terrible execution.
The wonks all wanted a big, expensive “system”. This system was so burdened and complicated that after months of meetings the sole benefit that I saw was an attractive opening screen.
What did happen in the background is that many of us had our own system in place within our company. Ours was a cross pollinated Filemaker and Portfolio database. While not as sexy as others it did provide us with a digital box to put assets into and get them out of.
What was especially gratifying about our workflow was that our software was used out of the box with very little custom work done to it. It provided not only a system for archiving but also for workflow.
So when you are faced with an archiving or workflow issue use what works and then determine if you need to use spend more.
Why Flickr, Picasa and the others are not good archives.
So you have several hundred or thousand digital photos and you want a quick way to archive them.
Your ISP or someone else is offering a deal online. You take your files and put them all up online so that they are safe. Well they may be.
A recent case is Verizon. Verizon once offered new customers some nice incentives join them. One of the incentives was a Flickr Pro. For many they put GBs of photos onto their Flickr Pro sites. Then Verizon decided to pull the plug on many if not all of its premium services. Flickr Pro was one of them.
So for many of the Verizon subscribers that put their files into Flickr for safety they had to either agree to sign up with Flickr for their Pro account or download all their files and start over somewhere else.
Suggestion. Always, always, always backup. Then to HDs. Then if you want go online with the photo site du jour.
In my world of digital archives, workflows and production our motto is
Your ISP or someone else is offering a deal online. You take your files and put them all up online so that they are safe. Well they may be.
A recent case is Verizon. Verizon once offered new customers some nice incentives join them. One of the incentives was a Flickr Pro. For many they put GBs of photos onto their Flickr Pro sites. Then Verizon decided to pull the plug on many if not all of its premium services. Flickr Pro was one of them.
So for many of the Verizon subscribers that put their files into Flickr for safety they had to either agree to sign up with Flickr for their Pro account or download all their files and start over somewhere else.
Suggestion. Always, always, always backup. Then to HDs. Then if you want go online with the photo site du jour.
In my world of digital archives, workflows and production our motto is
Redundancy is good.
Life Span of storage media
From OST.ORG
Generally speaking, manufacturers claim life spans ranging from 30 to 100 years for DVD-R and DVD+R discs and up to 30 years for DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM. Be aware, however, that disc producers, manufacturing methods and materials change over time as do applications and cost imperatives. Consequently, those concerned with disc longevity should consult their media manufacturer for more particular information.
DVDs 30 +
Hard drives
Manufactures warranty run from 5-10 years depending on brand and model. Take a hint.
Also from Macsolvers’ Blog a PDF from the Great Google a light read but cut to the end and it says
“We find, for example, that after their first scan error, drives are 39 times more likely to fail within 60
days than drives with no such errors.” excerpt from disk_failures.pdf
So be warned if you get a scan error.
Also life span as determined above is in ideal locations. If you have a tendency to pull your DVDs out and leave them on your desk, and your HDs are constantly being turned on and off with the power switch your mileage will vary.
Generally speaking, manufacturers claim life spans ranging from 30 to 100 years for DVD-R and DVD+R discs and up to 30 years for DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM. Be aware, however, that disc producers, manufacturing methods and materials change over time as do applications and cost imperatives. Consequently, those concerned with disc longevity should consult their media manufacturer for more particular information.
DVDs 30 +
Hard drives
Manufactures warranty run from 5-10 years depending on brand and model. Take a hint.
Also from Macsolvers’ Blog a PDF from the Great Google a light read but cut to the end and it says
“We find, for example, that after their first scan error, drives are 39 times more likely to fail within 60
days than drives with no such errors.” excerpt from disk_failures.pdf
So be warned if you get a scan error.
Also life span as determined above is in ideal locations. If you have a tendency to pull your DVDs out and leave them on your desk, and your HDs are constantly being turned on and off with the power switch your mileage will vary.
Knowledge Management or KM
Knowledge management is one of those technology invented catch phases to describe an otherwise straight forward notion of management of ideas. OK, so knowledge management or KM is a far less verbose way of saying it.
KM does help to organize and in organizations and offices it can be very effective. It works from the smallest non profit to the largest mega corps.
KM when effective will focus on objectives, manage resources, usually intellectual but also technological, reduces redundancies and improves overall organizational performances.
Examples of KM range from simple blogs, to advanced DAM (digital asset management) systems. Cost range from free to this thing better be worth it if it costs that much.
Some links for further information on Knowledge Management are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management
http://www.kmworld.com/
http://lisnews.org/node/25850
and last the original of all KM and DAM systems http://www.ala.org/.
If you would like to discuss some the KM systems I have participated in and designed drop me line.
KM does help to organize and in organizations and offices it can be very effective. It works from the smallest non profit to the largest mega corps.
KM when effective will focus on objectives, manage resources, usually intellectual but also technological, reduces redundancies and improves overall organizational performances.
Examples of KM range from simple blogs, to advanced DAM (digital asset management) systems. Cost range from free to this thing better be worth it if it costs that much.
Some links for further information on Knowledge Management are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management
http://www.kmworld.com/
http://lisnews.org/node/25850
and last the original of all KM and DAM systems http://www.ala.org/.
If you would like to discuss some the KM systems I have participated in and designed drop me line.
ALA Guide to Reference is available as a free trial
What better way to polish your reference skills than from the source itself.
The ALA is offering a free trial of it’s The American Library Association's Guide to Reference at http://www.guidetoreference.org/HomePage.aspx
If you work in reference, research, or just need more information this is nice offering.
The ALA is offering a free trial of it’s The American Library Association's Guide to Reference at http://www.guidetoreference.org/HomePage.aspx
If you work in reference, research, or just need more information this is nice offering.
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