Digital Asset Management | News

Milwaukee School of Engineering Addresses Digital Asset Disarray

• By Kevin Hudson
• 06/11/13

The Milwaukee School of Engineering had a problem: too many photos with no easy way to search them, and an ever-growing image database in disarray.

The trove of images kept by the university's marketing department included event photos, marketing and publication shots, faculty and staff headshots, and sports team coverage. The number of images was becoming increasingly unwieldy. Add in the lack of a keyword search function and the problem was getting out of control.

"We were storing photos in folders on a network, and it became cumbersome to search through them," said JoEllen Burdue, MSOE director of media relations, in a release. "Our photo drive got really large, and organizing photos became more difficult."

The marketing department teamed up with the school's IT department to find a solution that would reduce the hours marketing staff were spending filling photo requests by adding keyword search functionality and opening up the system for other departments to access and search.

MSOE chose the Widen cloud-based Digital Asset Management solution for the task and will deploy the Widen DAM first through the marketing department and eventually to all departments as photos are needed, according to a release.

"MSOE faces the same challenge that all higher ed institutions grapple with, centralizing and organizing their many, many files that are hidden across different departments and in disparate locations," said Nina Brakel-Schutt, Widen Brand Strategist. "Widen has a history of helping higher education customers manage their assets."

MSOE is an independent, non-profit university with about 2,500 students, according to a release, offering 20 bachelor's degrees and nine master's degrees in engineering, business, mathematics and nursing.

Editor's note: This article has been modified since its original publication to correct a factual error. We previously referred to the school's marketing department as the media relations department. Last modified June 13, 1:35 p.m. (D.N.)