managing images

What is an IMS ?

Management call it: Image Management System

Some staff call it: Image Mangling Service

Soon, staff will call it: Input Metadata Slavery

The wise call it: Image Master Storage

A story about Jeff

Jeff is a scientist at the Museum

Jeff takes lots of photos as part of his work

Jeff stores his photos everywhere

i:drive, j:drive, z:drive, w:drive, x:drive, CD, his garage…

Unfortunately, Jeff dies in a horrible car accident

At some point, Jeff’s peers start looking for Jeff’s photos.

They never find all of Jeff’s photos.

Jeff’s peers curse him.

Moral : If Jeff had stored all of his master images in the IMS, his peers would have loved him long after his passing.

A story about Betty

Betty works on a quarterly Museum publication.

Betty deals with lots of photos from external suppliers.

These photos are often only used once. Betty stores them on CDs .

Unfortunately, Betty develops an ice-smoking habit and loses her short term memory.

When Betty is asked about the legal use of some of the photos, she has no idea and no records .

Moral : If Betty had stored all images in the IMS, with all usage and copyright details, she (and the Museum) would have been ok.

A story about Zack

Zack also takes lots of photos for the Museum.

Zack’s photos are all amazing shots of lizards .

Unlike Jeff and Betty, Zack also puts all of his photos into the IMS .

Unfortunately, Zack doesn’t add metadata as he is too busy and too important.

Months later, someone needs a lizard photo.

They search the IMS for “lizard”, using a variety of search terms .

They can’t find a lizard photo. (Despite the fact there are 300 excellent photos in the system)

They curse the IMS.

The Museum eventually tracks down the non-metadata-inputing Zack . Zack is sacked .

Moral : The input of metadata must become a planned and controlled core function . Otherwise the system will break down.

What’s in it for you?

One place for images means easy retrieval .

Detailed information is stored with images. (Especially copyright and usage).

More local disk space !

Thanks