Balboa Park

Howard Goldstein, HR Goldstein Consulting, USA; Perian Sully, Balboa Park Online Collaborative, USA

Abstract

Digital asset management (DAM) can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming for a cultural institution to implement, yet DAM has become a central process to everyday workflows within cultural organizations. For ten small and mid-sized museums in San Diego’s Balboa Park, the Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC) undertook a project to rapidly deploy a Digital Asset Management System within the space of twelve months. This paper will provide a blueprint by outlining the process and steps BPOC took to analyze user needs, choose an application vendor, and implement the system, with special focus on the opportunities and challenges of providing centralized solutions to institutions with localized or parallel interests. This model can be of use to large organizations with disparate departments, colleges and universities, and collaborating organizations.