When the digital revolution hit photography, there was never a question in my mind of what the future was going to be.  It was not difficult giving up film, but the transition was not easy at first.  A lot of the technology was unproven and dependable systems to get from camera to final use were in a way still being worked out at that time. 

In a sense a similar transition is occouring with admissions marketing photography as well as college communications offices.  File drawers are filling up with CD’s and DVD’s.  Servers are holding more and more folders of photos.  This vast resource of images is becoming more difficult to manage.

My experience to date with client use of image libraries has been mixed.  Some clients are really on top of their image assets, others call me when they misplace a CD/DVD.  Either way the images keep coming. 

Let’s be honest, it’s work moving images to a server with all of the information that is necessary to make the library useful.  But the payback for that time is the ability to search for an image based on subject, name or any other category description to identify a photo.  One college I work with has over 18,000 images cataloged!  That is a vast resource when working on any admissions or institutional project. 

There are a number of “systems” out there for creating  libraries.  Think about how you would want it to work and then go talk with your IT folks.  You will never regret it.

 

Paul O’Mara   www.photomara.com