City of Toronto's Digital Asset Library - importing trends #DAM

Everyone loves measuring performance with statistics right?   At this point, we don't currently have a standard set of reports that can be automatically output from our Digital Asset Library (DAL).  I have to manually run a series of searches and compile information onto a spreadsheet, then output a chart.  Not the most elegant of solutions, but does provide a bird's eye view of our progress so far:

Observations:

Photo Video unit is by far the most active uploader into DAL.  This is not surprising because they were the originating unit of the DAL project, and the project requirements were tailored most closely to their needs.   They have less complex file types (typically TIFFs & JPEGs) than some of our other participating groups.  They also produce a large volume of photographs of City events which can be quickly tagged and uploaded as batches.  To their credit, they have been dedicated uploaders, typically importing hundreds of photos in batches each week.

Both Graphics & Visualization, City Planning and Information Production, City Clerk's Office have a steady but moderate growth in their files uploaded.  Specific staff have been using DAL for sharing completed projects (as PDFs).   An individual design project naturally takes more time to complete than a single event photo, and therefore there are fewer overall files than Photo Video.  However, these numbers also make clear that we must continue expanding our pilot managing more complex working Adobe Illustrator & InDesign files with placed art, leading to full adoption throughout these units.  These files take more time to upload and tag, as each individual working file has unique metadata.  We are currently planning an embedded XMP metadata project which should reduce workload when reusing working files in new projects.

Archives are using DAL to upload batches of JPEG access copies, which have embedded XMP metadata.  The fall-off in imports in early 2012 reflects some challenges in updating application components that allow DAL to read embedded metadata on import.  There is a learning curve for sustaining and managing new systems and we are certainly experiencing this.  We have a plan to resolve this issue in the near future, so batch imports can resume later in 2012.

This snapshot of DAL uploads reinforces the need for better reporting, which is essential for identifying trends and areas for improvement.  We are planning to upgrade our reporting capabilities in 2013.