ResourceSpace has changed the way the DEC uses content, making it much easier for us to quickly make assets available both internally and externally during our emergency appeals.
There are few countries in the world that boast a history as rich as England’s. From sites of cultural and historical significance to listed buildings and monuments, there’s a lot to enjoy, but it also needs protecting—and this is where Historic England comes in.
Historic England is the UK government agency that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment. They do this by championing historic places, identifying and protecting our heritage, supporting change, understanding historic places and providing expertise at a local level.
Unsurprisingly, supporting this mission requires a large archive of visual content, but according to the agency’s DAMS Project Product Owner Duncan Brown, their Digital Asset Management processes were ‘partial and fragmented’.
“Asset flows around the organisation had been unstructured at best”
Historic England had a large and well-structured asset archive alongside a range of DAM functions, but data flows in and out of the archive were constricted, while asset flows around the organisation had been unstructured at best, often with insufficient understanding of third-party rights to the content.
“This has resulted in silos of creators and compilers holding pots of useful content in isolation from potential audiences,” says Duncan.
By 2023, the organisation recognised that they needed to tackle these challenges, and embarked on a project to develop more robust DAM processes backed up by a DAM system that could effectively support them.
“A single point of access so staff can be assured they can use what they see”
“Our aim was to bring together cleared archives and other content with a single point of access so staff can be assured they can use what they see,” says Duncan.
“We also wanted the DAM to be the central storage location for our various disparate content sources, with means of applying comprehensible caveats and restrictions where usage conditions are uncertain.
“Finally, we wanted it to enable flows of assets between departments, particularly into and out of the archive, as well as a means of delivering content to third-party partners.”
“We now have over 500 internal users signed up”
The key to developing effective Digital Asset Management processes is internal buy-in, and in that respect Historic England’s implementation of ResourceSpace - known within the agency as ‘Lighthouse’ - has been a huge success.
“We have been able to create a workflow for the capture, storage and retrieval of digital assets which has gained wide traction across the organisation,” says Duncan
“We now have over 500 internal users signed up to the DAM, with multiple internal content providers adding digital material, as well as a controlled means of delivering content, both internally and externally.”
Although the focus is largely on still images, the project has also been a catalyst for considering how digital assets are valued, stored and transmitted around Historic England, and to our partners and customers. As familiarity with the system and processes grows over time, Duncan hopes the benefits to the DAM users and agency as a whole will increase.
“We’re adding more content and building systems to accelerate the volume of assets we make available from our archive, while adding new groups of content providers from within Historic England, including broadening our range from still images, to video and audio content,” says Duncan.
“We’re also exploring ways of integrating with internal file stores for databases and our website content management system.”
Historic England is a public sector institution specialising in cultural heritage, two sectors in which we have an excellent reputation.
To find out more about the work we’ve done in the public sector, as well as the arts and heritage sector, check out our case studies and testimonials. Alternatively, why not chat to a ResourceSpace DAM Consultant about your organisation’s requirements? We’ll have a quick consultation to get to know your current setup, challenges and objectives, before arranging a DAM demonstration tailored to you. Click below to get started.
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