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welcome to Henry Stewart New York 2019
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I'm Douglas egli I'm joined this morning
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by Susan Walmsley how are you this
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morning
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fine thanks can you tell us a little bit
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about what you do at the Guggenheim yes
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I'm the digital asset manager and I am
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in charge of all of the workings of the
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database including metadata strategy
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taxonomy file naming conventions user
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training application integrations I
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handle pretty much my department of one
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and you've been at this for a few years
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even even before the time yes I've been
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working with damn for I'll say more than
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ten years and I've been at the museum
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for nearly five right and I'm the chief
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digital officer as you know at
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Minneapolis Institute of Art I've been
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working in dams one way or another since
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the late 1990s Oh we've both been doing
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this a while why do we keep why do we
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keep doing it what is it that excites us
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about this well to me it's so important
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it's one of the most critical tools of
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our institution of any institution
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that's where everything all the content
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that anyone needs is essentially and
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it's where you can have continuing
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institutional knowledge you can it's
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it's people come and go through the
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institution all of that information is
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captured and stays with the assets and
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it's critical absolutely you and I have
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talked also about how you know the
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museum sector is a business like any
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other business and dams is foundational
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to functioning but we have some unique
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things like you know we have this
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mandate to collect and preserve things
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preferably forever but not just because
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we want to preserve things those things
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being like the greatest stuff that
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people have ever
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but we want to make sure that we're
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preserving to share and that mandate has
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an impact on dams right absolutely
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because you essentially can never get
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rid of anything in the sense that you
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don't really retire information it's not
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like there's a campaign about a painting
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and then you can just stow away all of
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those assets later you have to keep them
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available so that people within the
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institution curators can research maybe
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conservation needs to review a condition
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the condition of something or scholars
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would like to you know review the
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material so it has to be available so
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you just sort of this ever-increasing
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amount of assets that are related to
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objects that you're certainly not
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getting rid of and then you have a need
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for digital preservation really which
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sort of pushes the limits of your
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average dam we were joking that our our
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inventories don't roll over right
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exactly in our sector what we're selling
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is experience we don't sell our
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collection right so that we're museums
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who are constantly acquiring new works
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of art and then photographs commenting
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yeah documenting them but in our
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industry when we talk about preserving
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in order to share I think you and I have
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also discussed this you know we have
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these dam systems that are assets that
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we've created usually I mean have you
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lots of kinds of assets but one of the
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big focuses would be around the objects
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in the collection we're now collecting
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digital works of art do we just stick
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those in the dams is that where they
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belong no is the short answer because in
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general the dam isn't equipped to have
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that kind of archival preservation that
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something like a born digital artwork
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needs and then there are additional
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issues with artists intent who can see
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some of these artworks there's an access
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copy there isn't always so you have to
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be careful about mistaking access copies
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for preservation copies for the real
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artwork
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and it's just it sort of pushes the
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limits the scope of what a dam really
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performs that I agree and I think that
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it makes things a little complex for us
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in our dams operations that we have to
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be knowledgeable about how digital asset
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management systems and methods function
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and that knowledge probably spans
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industries but then you layer in these
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other concerns right and an organization
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that's not thinking clearly would start
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cramming digital works of art into a
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dams where the marketing people could
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access it but don't know how to what it
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is yeah yeah I never do you do it
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creates really yeah yes and I think that
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it's a also a common misunderstanding
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with people who don't necessarily work
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in the digital asset field or maybe who
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are you know more vyx an executive
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position and the institution to
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understand what all of the systems
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really do and I think that they often
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mistake the dam as a as a capital a
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archive space which is not the case
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although it could push that way I think
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you know depending on the organization
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we've also talked about the some of the
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issues that face our sector in terms of
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dams you know we I think a lot of
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museums are still even trying to
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implement their first dams and when we
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do implement dams it's often there's an
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adoption problem I mean I know that we
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it's so hard to get the tool set it
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seems like such an investment to install
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this fancy software but then to see that
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no one's logging in it could be sort of
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frustrating how do you deal with that
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are people using it at the Guggenheim
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and how do you encourage that absolutely
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we have very high usership which I'm
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proud of and one of my focuses always in
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any institution I've worked in has been
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a user experience and trying to make
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sure that it's the interfaces as
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intuitive as it can be I mean they're
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kind of there's some built-in complexity
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it's hard to people do need some
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training
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on how to what they're looking at
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essentially but being able to find what
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you're looking for and get to it right
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away is my always my goal and looking at
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when you're implementing a system I
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think you really need to be smart about
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your metadata talk to people about how
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they search what they're searching for
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maybe they searched by acronyms maybe
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they search for the whole title you have
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to be prepared for both and just truth
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pour in as much metadata as you can but
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in a smart way I mean you can't just
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have a lot of things that are useless I
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mean the tag of art for instance
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wouldn't be useful in an art museum
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differentiate exactly you need you know
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works on paper or painting or you know
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whatever so that's the sort of like
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building that kind of good strategy
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about how people search how they think
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what are your what are your
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institutional acronyms acronyms and
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nicknames do you find that there's an
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official title for an exhibition that
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you do but internally people refer to it
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either by an acronym or some strange
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totally absolutely three years later
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they're in the dams and they're
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searching by that nickname mm-hmm and if
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you haven't entered that somewhere
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people they're sort of like well I can't
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find the Jones exhibition really exactly
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Jones I think what you're talking about
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is the complexity including all of those
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kinds of yeah almost languages in the
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system yeah and then there's also
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technical languages I mean the
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conservation department wants to be able
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to find you know they don't necessarily
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but they just use more technical terms
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and they want it might want to search
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for you know photomicrographs or
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something and and you know maybe
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somebody else would forget to tag that
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or something so you have to you have to
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talk with everybody and find out how
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they're searching and and then continue
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it I mean you have to keep up all the
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informations still coming in the assets
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they're still coming in you have to make
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sure that people can find them and it's
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all metadata driven absolutely although
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even if the metadata is great have you
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run into this problem because we have I
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have it every stop
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you put an asset in the dams because
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it's the official asset
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and either it's maybe it's a photograph
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of an object maybe it's branding
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materials logos whatever it may be and
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then six months later you search Network
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shares and there's 70 copies that people
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have downloaded and stuck into their own
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files so slow rolling away there for a
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rainy day when the when the dams down
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that's not something about trust yeah
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there I think that people somehow don't
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trust the big system that Binion
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training in or in order to use they kind
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of trust their file structure exactly
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it's oddly self-defeating for the
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investment that we put in a day house
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yeah do you run searches on that do you
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do any correctives the is there any
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approach you I have to do I don't really
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I try hard to focus on people who are
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excited about the dam to sort of get
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their colleagues to use it or there's
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there's some people that just are just
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stubborn they're not they're not going
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to learn they're just not going to and
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that happens so I don't worry about them
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so much I just try to make sure that
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everybody knew who's coming in I feel
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like there isn't much more openness
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about using these kind of systems now
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and and you know with each time that we
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upgrade or improve our system there's
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fewer instances of it going down or you
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know that I feel like there's much much
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more reliable than it has been in
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previous years
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so as that continues I think people will
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stop stashing interest and I think
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that's a smart approach we talk a lot
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strategically about you know
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organizationally people will spend far
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too much time trying to get the
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recalcitrant folks on board when you
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have the folks who are ready for it yeah
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and if you focus your attention on those
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who are already adopting or eager to
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adopt you can kind of ignore the
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naysayers they they or though as they'll
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ask their colleagues - about you know
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how do you do that again or would you
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get that you know if you get if you if
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you have a great crop of well-trained
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interns for example that's who's doing a
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lot of searching in the dam so you know
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you get them to
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to learn how to use it and then that's
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who they're gonna ask one of the things
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that I found that ironic is that you
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know museums are we think of ourselves
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as these sort of cathedrals of continual
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lifelong learning and yet the staff
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doesn't want to be trained so it's
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interesting when you need to train
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people who don't really like being
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trained there's almost emotional defense
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of this to this idea of being trained
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one of the tricks that we use is we
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never used it we're training right it's
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some kind of collaborative thing or or
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there's doughnuts or chocolate or coffee
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and someone in and then you get people
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in the room yeah and you kind of train
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without training it becomes more of an
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exercise together you do things like
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that definitely I try to and some sort
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of like quarterly or something come up
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with here's some tips and tricks kind of
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limits are usually how I couch it you're
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gonna learn something new it's not just
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the old how to log in but then also I do
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a lot of one-on-one training I find
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there are people who because generally I
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don't hear from people unless they're
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having an issue finding something so
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then I can hear where it is that the
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system is failing them and from there I
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can see maybe they need a little extra
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training a lot of times it's just I just
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need to walk them through it on the
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phone and it just gives me a little bit
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more insight into oh I should make that
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button bigger or I should I don't know
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clear out this other text over here or
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maybe simplify things or so ultimately I
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end up doing a lot of let me stop by
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your desk and we'll have a look at this
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together okay and I can do that because
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our institutions you know relatively
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small we don't have it's not a huge
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corporations so I like the idea that you
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do this in person interaction because
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it's more meaningful and it sounds to me
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from your description that you
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things so you're not just there to sort
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of correct people's mistakes and teach
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them something but you're actually
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learning about your own system and
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things that you can do to make that
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system better for the people who are
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using it so I think that two-way
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dialogue is probably the best way of
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doing it why my goal is always no phone
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calls so so I'm happy to hear where it
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is that you know and maybe it's an I'm
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so used to looking at the system that I
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forget you know how or sometimes there's
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something where I've you know changed
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something over here and it changes the
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workspace over there and I've haven't
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realized it so I'm always glad to hear
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from people and hear where the problem
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is because generally it is actually an
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issue of some sort you know it's either
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something's disconnected or a little bit
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legitimately a difficult thing to find
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and I want to think oh I should be
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tagging that with the acronym or
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something as well so exactly we were
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talking about this second wave of dams
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in the museum sector and I think we
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define it a little bit differently so
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let's talk about that because you you're
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talk about what you think the second way
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of his men at least for your career in
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the Guggenheim well I feel like the well
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the first wave I feel like was sort of
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everybody getting set up with their dams
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I realize not everybody is there yet but
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now we're focusing more on how we can
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integrate the dam into our ecosystem
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there and how we can connect it to other
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systems and then also we just have a lot
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of new file types or we're focusing more
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on trying to get more video and we're
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producing more video we are shooting
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more video so that's a sort of a new
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frontier for us because the file sizes
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are larger our dam does have some out of
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the box video features but could we
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could benefit from having a more robust
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video module and I feel like we've got
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this new frontier of technology that
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people are looking at or thinking about
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augmented reality they're thinking
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about 3d modeling and those are all
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things that you'll need to store assets
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someplace you store information and
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photographs of things in the dam and so
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we're kind of diversifying the file
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types I guess and I think maybe we agree
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to an extent I thought of the second
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wave I've seen a lot of museums ditching
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their original dams and buying a new one
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right and that path into the new system
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is informed by a lot of the things that
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you just talked about plus what we
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learned in implementing our first system
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in fact mistakes that we made
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certainly I made some mistakes in
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cramming way too much data into a dams
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like almost the entire collection
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information management system database
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dumped into the dam so the granular and
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then it becomes this kind of shadow
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system that people are using to search
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the collection and yeah slowed
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everything down made a mess of things
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hard to back out of that once you've
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been there possible difficult and also I
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think the mindset of saying we have this
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product and we use it and we get mad at
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it over time and sometimes maybe it's
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not really the product getting a new
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product is more of a psychological reset
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than a fractional recess probably very
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give yourself a fresh view when you get
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you get a new look in your interface but
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you're essentially you're gonna be
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implementing it a similar tool so you
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have to I I do feel like the switch from
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from 1.0 to 2.0 or however you want to
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put it is it's definitely a lot of it
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has to do with sort of not implementing
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the first one perfectly and it is hard
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to go back and change things it's easier
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it's to sort of clean slate okay we're
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gonna cut out this this is too much too
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many assets too many things we don't
00:17:10
need too many or well you know however
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you want to simplify and then move that
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set into the new rather than sort of
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cleaning up what you've got and then
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maybe upgrading to the next level with
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the same company or something like but
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it is essentially it's nice to have a
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fresh clean look and that was one thing
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when we upgraded last summer as we
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wanted to get away from the old name and
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come up with a new name and we had a new
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clean look because people were sort of
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dissatisfied with how the old one was
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performing and so this was going to be a
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fresh new tool and everyone was going to
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really pushing user adoption so it helps
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when you have when people say oh this
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looks so much easier and the background
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white instead of black and it's you know
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however you know what it looks new and
00:18:02
it was an upgrade of the same product
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kind of a rebranding yes it was
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absolutely a rebranding how do you when
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people come to you and they say you have
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a cool job at a cool place how do I
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become you what do you say to emerging
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professionals who are interested in
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digital asset management asset
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management in general in a museum sector
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do you have advice for them well I was
00:18:24
lucky to come at it by getting a lot of
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on-the-job experience at previous
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companies and because it wasn't really a
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it wasn't a thing back then and I so I
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was able to start from the beginning and
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do some major digitization projects and
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move into different types of how do you
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what do you how do you deal with these
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assets I went through a phase of well
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we're gonna put our best 500 images on a
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website and then it was the how do you
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choose the images and who's choosing how
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long do they stay up that ain't that
00:19:03
kind of a mess and then eventually dam
00:19:06
was developed I mean there were these
00:19:07
sort of in-house database kind of things
00:19:10
and then there was an enterprise level
00:19:12
dam that was introduced and so I was
00:19:15
lucky to learn all of these things on
00:19:17
the job but I feel like now you can
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definitely there's more there's a
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program that's just started at Rutgers
00:19:26
for a degree or certificate and digital
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asset management King's College London
00:19:32
has a dam program so I definitely like
00:19:36
the education like it's there I feel
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like you can start to learn these things
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in school
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but certainly getting into the museum
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world as well I mean this that's just
00:19:48
damn in general learning this the system
00:19:51
there's so many of them out there you
00:19:52
could you can get a lot of experience
00:19:56
and there aren't a lot of jobs generally
00:19:59
the museum sector mostly unfilled yeah
00:20:02
and when there's an opening you get a
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lot of resumes yeah and one of the
00:20:05
mistakes that I find people make is it
00:20:07
they're sort of Express a desperation to
00:20:10
work in a museum
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okay yeah which isn't really what we're
00:20:14
looking for right right going to hire a
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damns manager I'm looking for a dams
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manager exactly happy to hire someone
00:20:20
who's never worked in a museum I mean
00:20:22
the expertise in the system okay and I
00:20:24
think sometimes people make the mistake
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of thinking I have to be have Museum
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Studies degree or go to a museum right
00:20:29
I'm in order to work in a museum yeah
00:20:31
maybe just don't think that's the case
00:20:33
if you want to work in dam in a museum
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then you know it's still open as far as
00:20:39
you don't necessarily I mean obviously
00:20:42
there's not really a lot of places to
00:20:44
get a degree in dam but you know getting
00:20:46
experience elsewhere or you know I guess
00:20:49
library science is a way to come come
00:20:51
through it but it's it it's its own its
00:20:55
own animal in a way so it's just waiting
00:20:59
for those job openings I guess yeah I
00:21:03
think what's been fun about operating
00:21:05
the dams yeah is the adventure in the
00:21:09
innovation in the asset types especially
00:21:11
an object photography which has become
00:21:13
such an intense technology the past 15
00:21:17
years or so yeah and you know 15 years
00:21:19
ago museums were arguing about whether
00:21:20
film was still better than digital and
00:21:22
that was kind of it yeah how we do this
00:21:25
x-ray
00:21:27
and raking light and texture and 3d
00:21:29
imaging it's every time I go into our
00:21:32
photos do you there's something cool
00:21:33
going on yeah is it the same at the
00:21:35
Guggenheim yes well I'm part of the
00:21:37
photography department that my position
00:21:39
is is within the photography department
00:21:41
so I'm in the photo studio most days and
00:21:45
it's great to see all of those amazing
00:21:49
masterpieces come through get
00:21:52
photographed you get to see sometimes
00:21:55
the artists come in and check conditions
00:21:57
of things sometimes you know you have a
00:22:01
curator in there deciding if they want
00:22:03
to use it in the show or maybe loan it
00:22:04
or and there's all kinds of discussion
00:22:06
that goes on about it and it's exciting
00:22:08
to see some things you know you have
00:22:10
something that's you know been taken out
00:22:12
of a crate that hasn't seen though the
00:22:14
light of the studio and a decade or
00:22:16
something and then it's you know you
00:22:17
really get to see all the treasures of
00:22:20
the museum coming through you're there
00:22:21
for the unboxing yes exactly
00:22:26
let's talk about the future what's next
00:22:28
for damson and museums from your
00:22:30
perspective well I mean I feel like now
00:22:35
that we for the most part I'll just say
00:22:38
generally which isn't exactly true
00:22:40
museums have their damn set up now we're
00:22:43
looking to see what more we can do where
00:22:46
we can make our workflows easier I think
00:22:50
people are interested in bringing in
00:22:51
more rights magnet management modules
00:22:54
licensing information there's a push for
00:22:59
more tracking and watermarking so you
00:23:04
can see where your images have ended up
00:23:06
and I think also particularly for the
00:23:08
museum world there's a push to make your
00:23:11
assets open more open for public
00:23:14
consumption and available easier for
00:23:18
more scholarships so that's great that's
00:23:21
a comprehensive list anything as you
00:23:23
were talking I'm thinking what else what
00:23:24
else oh she got that you got that you
00:23:26
got that so I think you're on the right
00:23:27
track and and we talked a little bit
00:23:29
earlier about new asset types new
00:23:32
larger files and I think the future of
00:23:34
dams for us is there's gonna be some
00:23:36
issue with storage there's gonna be some
00:23:37
issue with ballet there's gonna be some
00:23:40
issue with we're gonna be talking cloud
00:23:42
storage more often I think and file
00:23:44
types that wouldn't even know about yet
00:23:46
a new file types would be invented if I
00:23:48
look at what's happening in the gaming
00:23:50
industry and how they're creating these
00:23:52
incredibly immersive animations it's
00:23:55
going to be part of our world sooner or
00:23:57
later I finally augmented reality
00:23:59
virtual reality so we the more
00:24:01
flexibility we show the more agility we
00:24:03
show I think more successful we can be
00:24:05
yeah thank you so much for joining me
00:24:08
for this chat this morning thank you for
00:24:10
having me thank you very much for
00:24:12
watching the video look forward to
00:24:13
seeing everyone at the next Henry
00:24:15
Stewart dam conference
00:24:24
you
