Uses and applications of iBase digital asset management systems
iBase digital asset management software can be used for any objective in which the management and distribution of digital assets of all types - including image, video, audio, PDF, document etc - are part of what is required.
What do you want to do?
Every organisation has some unique aspects of their requirements, and the core flexibility of an iBase digital media asset management system enables configuration to meet the needs.
Here are some of the things iBase digital media management software is used for under broad categories.
What you want to do is probably amongst them. If you don't see your specific requirement, or to find out which of our solutions is the most suitable, just get in touch with us: +44(0)1943 60 36 36 or sales@ibase.com
Digital media asset management
Managing digital assets - storage, search and retrieval
There are many specialised ways in which a digital asset system can be used, and some of them are outlined below. They all have the same essential features:
- Storage - collecting together all types of digital asset, for example images, video, audio, PDFs etc, and storing them all in one place - with suitable backup procedures of course - where everyone knows where they are.
- Search - having stored the digital assets all in one place it is of course essential to be able to find them again, quite possibly looking for one or a handful of files amongst perhaps hundreds of thousands.
- Retrieval - when a digital asset has been found there will often be a requirement to retrieve either the master version or, in the case of images, a lower resolution surrogate. It might be that users are allowed to retrieve assets without the need for authorisation, or perhaps the administrator of the assets or some other individual will need to see a request and give specific authorisation.
- Security - it might be that some or all of the digital media assets are subject to confidentiality restrictions, whereby for example some can be seen by all users, and others only by specific departments or individuals.
iBase digital asset management systems combine all of these essential features, incorporating powerful search mechanisms to find that 'needle in a haystack', fully configurable download features, with robust and very flexible security options.
Council / local authority
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A local authority like any other organisation has large collections of images and other assets which they need to manage and use. Blackburn with Darwen Council and Leicestershire County Council are examples of local authorities using an iBase image management system for their photographs and other digital assets.
University / academic institution educational assets
- Nowadays universities and other academic institutions rely heavily on intranet systems and the web to distribute educational material. iBase digital asset management software enables digitised material to be managed and published for use by students and, if they wish, the general public. Harrow School and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute are amongst iBase customers using a media asset management system in this way.
Scientific institutions
- The National Museum of Science and Industry, Catalyst Museum and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute especially appreciate the inherent flexibility of the iBase digital asset management database schema. Of great value also is the ability for field workers, wherever they are on the globe, to upload images, video and audio files thus making them immediately available for the rest of the institution's personnel.
Digital asset management for marketing campaigns
- In a similar way as for brand asset management - marketing department requirements include administrative control over users and access rights; powerful searching; image request and authorised download; automatic logging of image use. iBase customers with these sort of requirements include the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), International Rugby Board, and St Andrews University. Sharron Ranby, the NCSL Marketing Co-ordinator was looking for a hosted and managed service to minimise the effort needed to add and catalogue new images. She said "....we are absolutely thrilled by the library. It's easy to use, practical and definitely what I was looking for ..."
Manufacturing and engineering drawings
- There is no better way of distributing, managing and archiving industrial documents than digitising them and storing them in a robust digital asset management system. For example, Federal Mogul use iBase cataloguing software and image library system to control, distribute and archive manufacturing information.
Control and distribution for brand asset management
- The key requirements of a brand asset management system are to ensure that digital assets, once created, are not misplaced or lost; to know which images and other assets have been used for what; and of course to be able to search a database of assets to find the right item for a specific purpose. The National College for School Leadership, The British Music Experience, and Blackburn with Darwen Council are amongst iBase customers using Brand asset management software.
Multimedia online or internal library
Online library with e-commerce
- Not just photo library software - an iBase media management and picture library system enable images, video, audio and other file types to be catalogued and displayed as an online library for public access and commercial purposes. Clients making use of these features include Edinburgh City Libraries, Shetland Island Museum, Lancashire County Council, City of London Guildhall Library and Art Galleries...
Internal (intranet) online library
- For many organisations, a simple folder based image database system doesn't have the flexibility to handle their more sophisticated requirements for managing digital assets. The highly configurable nature of an iBase digital asset management database schema ensures they can catalogue and index their material in exactly the way that they want, no matter how complex the requirement.
- Users of iBase intranet systems include the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Horticultural Society, National Media Museum, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, National Museum of Science and Industry, Leicestershire County Council, Her Majesty's Courts Service, The Tate, National Railway Museum...
University / academic institution educational assets
- Nowadays universities and other academic institutions rely heavily on intranet systems and the web to distribute educational material. iBase media management software enables digitised material to be managed and published for use by students and, if they wish, the general public. Harrow School and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute are amongst iBase customers using a media asset management system in this way.
Scientific institutions
- The National Museum of Science and Industry, Catalyst Museum and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute especially appreciate the inherent flexibility of the iBase digital asset management database schema. Of great value also is the ability for field workers, wherever they are on the globe, to upload images, video and audio files thus making them immediately available for the rest of the institution's personnel.
Museums, Heritage and Art
Cataloguing and indexing of heritage, museum and gallery digital assets
- Nowadays the heritage sector is relying more and more on the web and gallery based interactive systems as a means to make their collections accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and of course to do this they first need have a sufficiently flexible and robust system to create and manage a digitised archive and library. iBase clients in this category include East Riding of Yorkshire Museum Service, BBC Heritage Department, Rhondda Cynon Taff Libraries, Edinburgh City Libraries, City of London Guildhall Library and Art Gallery, the National Galleries of Ireland and many more.
Virtual art gallery
- Probably the original purpose for which picture library software was developed. The ability to display fine art on the web and in visitor galleries means that many works that would otherwise only occasionally see the light of day can now be seen and appreciated by anyone, anywhere in the world. One of the best examples is COLLAGE, the website for the City of London Guildhall Library and Art Gallery.
Cataloguing and web display of historic pictures and images of artefacts
- Glasgow's Virtual Mitchell library, with its large collection of historic photographs organised by street and area attracts many web visitors both locally and from all over the world. Like Treorchy Library, Manchester Metropolitan University and many others they use iBase image library software for their pictures and other digital media assets.
Folksonomy, social tagging, feedback and comment
- It is becoming more and more popular to enable public users to provide feedback and tagging (keywords), especially for the social history records maintained by, for example, Shetland Island Museum, the Lancashire County Council with their Lancashire Lantern and FLOAT (Fleetwood Trawler Archive) websites, and Glasgow's Virtual Mitchell Library.
Inclusion in searches by federated search engines
- Federated search engines can search multiple collections at the same time from a single web page. There are many ways of enabling a collection to be searchable in this way, but some of them demand that each of the collections being searched have exactly the same database structure. However, iBase employ a REST Server solution which can be configured for any database structure, thus allowing as much flexibility as each individual collection needs. Manchester Metropolitan University, The Royal Armouries, and Victoria & Albert Museum use the iBase REST server for their federated searching.
Museum gallery displays
- The ability to publish specific sets of digital assets to multiple destinations - for example to both a web site and an internal gallery system for use by visitors - is used by the National Gallery of Ireland, East Riding of Yorkshire Museum Service, Shetland Island Museum, City of London Guildhall Library and Art Gallery and others.
Miscellaneous
Image library software content migration from third party systems
- Data from any open source can be migrated to an iBase database. Clients making use of this feature include the East Riding of Yorkshire Museum Service, Royal Armouries, National Museum of Science and Industry...
Cataloguing valuable assets
- Any organisation or institution with high value portable assets, such as paintings, jewellery, furniture etc... will be wise to create and maintain a photographic record of them with descriptive text. There are many good reasons for doing so - including for internal audit - but perhaps most importantly as a significant aid to subsequent recovery, identification and proof of ownership in the event of theft.
- Police forces say that the more quickly they have full details of what has been stolen, the more quickly they can pursue their investigations. The ability to immediately print detailed descriptions and photographs of stolen property is clearly of tremendous value in these circumstances, and in any case insurance companies are starting to either insist on such records as a condition of cover, or otherwise charging a significant additional premium.
Photographic competition image management
- University College Dublin run an annual competition for research images, and an iBase system gives entrants the ability to upload their contributions, judges the ability to assess and score each image, and for all of the pictures to be displayed on a website.
World wide upload and control of images and other assets
- The internet and web have made the world a smaller place, and for global organisations like the International Rugby Board and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, iBase systems mean that their contributors can upload images, video, sound and any other type of file from wherever they are in the world.
For further information about iBase products please contact us at sales@ibase.com or call +44 (0) 1943 603636