DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT FOR GEMOLOGY AND RELATED GEOSCIENCES

Librarians from the Richard T. Liddicoat Gemological Library & Information Center at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) led the initiative to establish a cross-departmental task force to digitize, preserve, and provide access to its geoscience visual resources.

GIA's mission is to ensure the public trust in gems and jewelry through education, research, and laboratory services. For over 75 years, photographs of gemstones, mining areas, and gemology have been vital to GIA staff meeting this mission through teaching gemology and publishing its research journal Gems & Gemology.

In 2004, librarians with 14 departments launched a digital asset management (DAM) system for the increasing number of digital resources. For the first phase, the task force began with digital images, since a DAM system is key to maintaining our images.

With a collection of over 50,000 35mm photographic slides, the first concern was the conservation of the slides by scanning them. Another concern was accessing the images in an international organization with campuses in 11 countries. Also, how to meet the needs of those seeking to license images for publications, websites, and other electronic media.

The key to successful implementation lies in planning the policies and procedures. Many questions need to be answered before searching for the right software solution and the required computer equipment.

Another step in the planning process is consideration of the metadata requirements. Information is vital to identify the content of an image, give useful details such as the photographer and copyright information, and provide access to the images during searching. A thesaurus of keywords is essential to aid in a database search.

Future expansion of GIA's DAM system will provide access to more geoscience resources as digital video and audio files, maps, books, articles, and gemology databases are included. These will enhance GIA's outreach via its web presence as it educates an ever-expanding public and supports scientists and policy makers of the international community.