Turning information professionals into digital archivists for success in today’s world of digital asset management

Abstract

The subject of training is often undervalued, but it is the key to ‘physical to digital transformation’. The traditional library/archive is fast becoming a thing of the past, and the challenge is to redefine the librarian’s relevance and apply their information management experience to the new digital world. Today’s digital archivists must possess the special skill-set necessary to organise, preserve and protect assets, but they actually add value to those assets by creating a link between the assets and their use. Training for digital archivists must include managing documents and images (moving and still), audio digital archiving with intelligent metadata tagging, cataloguing, indexing, digital file formats and delivery. This paper describes how digital archivists can work smarter with smart workflow, the importance of metadata for digital assets, intelligent cataloguing and business taxonomy, and includes a case study of a project undertaken by LAC Group.