A NEXPO conference panel looks to the future of all things archival.DALLAS—One of the bigger challenges for a publisher and that most cited by attendees this week at the Newspaper Association of America's NEXPO Newspapers '05 conference here is how to successfully archive images while saving space at the same time.
How does a company or publisher process, keep and manage all the data collected for a lifetime? And how does one do it economically and in an indexed format so that the data can be retrieved for repurposing? These were some of the questions posed by both attendees and participants at the packed "Archiving and Digital Asset Management" panel held on Saturday.
The most illuminating presentation came from Neil Mara, News Systems Director at the Charlotte Observer. His statement, "We're all engaged in a storage-versus-file-size arms race, and the goal is to stay ahead of the file-size curve," not only elicited nervous laughter but a short round of applause. This statement aptly summarized the prevailing challenge to the industry today.
Mara noted that what everyone is looking for is a better system of indexing and storage. He commented several times on the issue of saving outtakes and their uniqueness in regards to archival systems.
"We focus on keeping everything. We think outtakes are unique; we don't throw them away. If you think about it, in the old days of the business, we archived our outtakes in old shoe boxes of negatives—they weren't disposed of, they were kept in those boxes, just in case," Mara said.
Newspaper group speeds imaging workflow with BluMunKee. Click here to read more.
Mara's comments elicited rapt attention from the audience, particularly on the pressing subject of outtakes and repurposing.
"We see these outtakes as an invaluable resource. What is shot in an average photo shoot on assignment is for a specific reason or story. But you never know what's in the outtake pool and you may need it the next day or the next year. We want to make whatever we can available for resale down the road as well. We're all looking for a common system, a common configuration and workflow that is tightly automated," said Mara.
"The archive technology that everyone is looking for needs to be compatible with all working image sites, because there are disparate systems in place at different sites. What all of us are facing is a noncongruent variety of systems storing metadata, which makes it difficult to access, identify and preserve," continued Mara.
Mara, who heads a task force encompassing all Knight-Ridder publications, said one of the industry's goals beyond working with archiving is improving digital rights management.
"We want to set a standard, not only for Knight-Ridder, but also structured to handle all kinds of systems, not only available in archives, but other places. We think we can provide more use of our photos that way and want technology that can give us the ability for all content to have rights information on it when it's accessed initially, no matter who accesses it."
Citing as an example a picture printed of a deceased murder victim, Mara explained that the police made the photo available online to the journalists, but it was a mistake—when the photo ran the family was incensed, and it was realized that particular photo should never have been made available to the press for publication.
"That's one clear example of why a standard needs to be stringently applied both externally and internally. If you have rights management up front, no matter what business you're in, it establishes for everyone what can be done with the images," said Mara.
Mara's presentation succinctly addressed and identified the long-term challenges facing all publishers, whether they be corporate or newspaper.
Later in the exhibition hall, Matt Forey, regional business manager for Quark, speaking at his company's exhibitor booth, aptly summarized the conference's underlying direction when he said, "In Quark's view, we're all publishers now. We all are embracing the power of the Internet and facing the same issues and working toward the same goals. Everyone is faced with the same challenges and talking about needing a universal solution to solve them."
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