Digital Asset Management in Heritage: Organising the past, managing the future.
Register here
Wednesday 20th November
2pm – 3pm
with Alex Kron, Rachel Jacobsen and Nicola Henderson
Are your digital assets growing? Is the team who needs to access them growing? Whether it is a growing inventory of digitised archives and objects or social media assets, or both, how you manage those can impact the smooth operations of your museum and heritage organisation. In this session, we will look at how to create a digital asset management system without an IT department to support you. We will cover: the importance of digital asset management, assessing your museum's needs, choosing the right solution, organising your assets and long-term management and maintenance. Alex Kron (Community Engagement and Business Development Manager for Terentia) will lead this session and we will also hear from Rachel Jacobson on her experience working within a very small team at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC managing their digital assets without a digital management asset system in comparison to now working within a larger team at Georgetown University.
With over 15 years of experience in information and project management, Alex specializes in researching, selecting, and implementing cultural technology solutions, collection management, digital asset management, and digital preservation. She has worked in both commercial and arts and culture sectors for and alongside museums as the Curator of Collections at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, Digital Operations and Collections Information Analyst at Balboa Park Online Collaborative, Digital Preservation Lecturer for Johns Hopkins University’s Museum Studies and Digital Curation Programs, and currently as the Community Engagement and Business Development Manager for Terentia.
Rachel Jacobson has a diverse background in archives, digital asset management, and preservation. Her experience includes grant, contract, and other temporary positions in government-funded museums, Senate offices, nonprofits, and universities. In March 2023, Rachel started a permanent position as the Digital Repository and Preservation Librarian at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In this role she manages DigitalGeorgetown, which is the University's institutional repository and home to digitized and born-digital special collections. DigitalGeorgetown is in the midst of a platform migration. Rachel also leads a small digitization team, making material more accessible.
Nicola Henderson is a freelance arts and heritage professional, based in the Highlands with a passion for music, museums, Gaelic and the Highland landscape. She has worked within Scotland's Cultural Sector for over 20 years - from Glasgow to Aberdeenshire via Skye and Sutherland. Nicola has worked as director of two of Scotland's leading cultural organisations - Timespan in Helmsdale and The Barn in Banchory. Since going freelance ten years ago she has specialised in arts and heritage projects that focus on digital innovation, cultural fundraising, project management, community engagement and cultural tourism.
Nicola currently works as the Heritage Specialist for XpoNorth Digital and as the Innovation and Network manager for Museums and Heritage Highland - two roles that overlap in supporting the Highland heritage sector to innovate for a more sustainable future.
