Implementing Open Source DAM at Historic New England

David Dwiggins

Systems Librarian/Archivist

Historic New England

ddwiggins@historicnewengland.org

Twitter: @dwig

Historic New England’s missionWe serve the public by preserving and presenting

New England heritage.

Historic New England is a museum of cultural history that collects and preserves buildings, landscapes, and objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present and uses them to keep history alive and to help

people develop a deeper understanding and enjoyment of New England life and appreciation for its preservation.

5 program areas

• Historic Properties• Collections• Preservation Services• Education• Library and Archives

Collections Access Project• Multi-year, grant funded effort

to enhance public availability of collections– New collections management

system– Large-scale digitization– New website

• Project plan did not initially include DAM

Existing Imagery• 20,000+ existing digital images of collections

identified before digitization even started

New Digitization

Need for something!• Found ResourceSpace

– Open Source Digital Asset Management– Free! (as in puppies, not beer)

• Set up as low-commitment experimental tool• Use by collections staff drove acceptance as

permanent part of project

ResourceSpace open source DAMs• Originally developed for Oxfam GB• Historic New England is using – and helping develop• Implemented for CAP, but now used across organization

ResourceSpace features

• 100% web based• PHP/MySQL technology• Support for a wide variety of file formats via

helper applications– Imagemagick– FFmpeg– Exiftool– Etc.

ResourceSpace features• Automatic creation of derivative images• Good support for embedded metadata• Configurable metadata by resource type

ResourceSpace features• Extensive permission options• Ingest files or sync from existing folder structure

Public collections

• Public collections– Available to all users– Linked from resource record– Show up in search results

• Themes– Curated collections of

resources

Collection contact sheets (PDF)

Alternate files

Collections

• Allow users to create arbitrarygroupings of Resources

• Sharing– Internal users– External users via

time-limited URLs

Transform Plugin• Allows users to create

custom derivatives– Crop– Set specific size– Rotate/Flip

• Multiple output options– Download– Save as alternate– Replace original

(with permission)

Filestore

• Filestore based on hierarchical folders within filesystem (users would never see this)

DAM/collections management integration

•ResourceSpace

Minisis

Import of embedded metadata

Import process

• Lightroom export presets to generate related names for different files

• Files go into hotfolder, picked up by customized version of ResourceSpace StaticSync script– StaticSync can operate in sync mode or ingest mode;

we use ingest

Import of embedded metadata

Rollout to entire organization

• Property Care Team– Imported 45,000 existing

images– Heavy creators and

consumers

• Web project• Training for various user

groups

DAM Survey

• Conducted survey of users, summer, 2010– Approximately one year

after launch– 37 users completed survey

(55% response rate)

Need for system

Overall satisfaction with system

Overall Satisfaction

Areas for improvement

Supporting open source

• Active community of users/developers• PHP/MySQL programmers abound• Plugin Architecture

– customizations without changing core system

The tool is only the first step• Workflow planning• Policies & user training• Metadata standards and

practices• Monitoring of incoming

resources• Storage• Backup• Integration with other

systems

ResourceSpace resources

• Main Site– http://www.resourcespace.org

• Wiki– http://wiki.resourcespace.org

• Google Group– http://groups.google.com/group/resourcespace