The Antarctic Digital Asset Management project

Abstract

Antarctica New Zealand has, over the past 60 years, amassed an astounding collection of imagery of historical, scientific and environmental importance, not to mention the epic story that the images tell about the resilience of humanity in an environment as harsh and unforgiving as Antarctica. This paper focuses on Phase I of the Antarctic Digital Asset Management project to digitise the 40,000 historic image pictorial collection. The paper describes the drivers that enabled the project to advance, describes in detail the process employed to find an appropriate digital asset management system and the lessons learned. It focuses on how the problem was solved of transcribing the handwritten metadata of over 24,000 slide images and making them available and searchable online. This project led to a vast increase in the collection’s use for purposes ranging from scientific research and education to an increased social media presence and awareness of the science that is facilitated.