Discover how the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle streamlined its media management and developed its digital strategy thanks to a high-performance DAM solution!
Responsible forthe Images department at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) , Aurélie Roux began her career in a private photo agency nearly 19 years ago. In 2004, she joined the MNHN as a Documentalist in the photo library and progressed to Manager. A few years later, she took charge of the new Images department, created to bring together photo/video production and the photo/video library, where she now manages 6 people.
What was the MNHN photo library like when you arrived in 2004?
It had just been digitized when I arrived. Thousands of slides and paper photos were housed on an old online photo library solution. At the time, the animal and plant thesaurus already represented almost 100,000 media. Our solution didn't cope well with the sheer volume, and the long loading times made searches difficult.
What are your day-to-day challenges and issues?
On a day-to-day basis, it's all about production management. I've set up an internal form for requests for new shoots. Everyone needs photographers and videographers, but we're a relatively small team, so I have to take stock of needs, plan according to priorities/availability and supervise before delivery.
And this is one of the aspects on which Muséumédia comes into play, because it's on this interface that I'm going to deposit the shots I've requested. They are then sent to our documentalist, who indexes them and makes them available. So we're involved in the whole media chain, from production to distribution. And we also create content on our own initiative, of course.
How have your production and distribution needs evolved over the years, from your first tool to Keepeek?
We've been through quite a few solutions, including Opsomai, which was the solution we were using just before switching to Keepeek. To be honest, we had no desire to change at the outset; this classic Digital Asset Management tool suited us well. But when the company went out of business, we had to change very quickly, and Keepeek was recommended to us by the editor. What's more, a member of our team had already worked with Keepeek for the Cinémathèque Française. Cinémathèque Française and was instrumental in validating the choice of your solution.
Initially, we worked with Keepeek on the same scope as we had with Opsomai. The robustness and fluidity of the solution quickly led to the emergence of new needs. In fact, the front-office interface was an immediate hit with our teams, in terms of visuals and ease of use. Our back-office work was also greatly facilitated. Today, the Keepeek DAM solution offers a centralized platform for all MNHN's digital assets: images, videos, graphic documents, logos, animations, 360° videos, podcasts...
Finally, if I had to highlight one point, it was the quality of the project follow-up by the Keepeek teams that really made all the difference.
Can you tell us about the migration from your previous solution to ours?
I've been through several migration phases, as we'd already changed solutions in the past. The kind of migration follow-up we got with Keepeek was unheard of! Having a documentalist train us and, above all, talking to people who understand us has added a great deal of value. We have a very specific language, with a complex indexing of our media, and the project follow-up was really up to scratch and very professional. Unlike traditional Digital Asset Management solutions, the Keepeek teams really understand their customer's challenges. Thanks to their expertise, we avoided a major delay in the release of our project due to a problem with one of our indexing files.
So you have a back-office for managing your media on the administrator side, but also a front-office accessible both internally and to external visitors. What's the difference with your website?
It's an image bank that allows us to make all our photos and videos available. Internal profiles can freely download media, while external users can only view them. If they wish to download an image, they must request it by e-mail.
Internal user teams are very cross-functional, including communications teams, exhibition organizers, researchers, lecturers and so on.
For external clients, we tend to turn to publishing houses, particularly those that publish school textbooks and major works, the press, tourist guides, and sometimes private individuals who want to decorate their website.
We were talking earlier about the typology of media that could be found in your DAM, and you told us that podcasts were now included?
That's right, we're slowly starting to do a bit of audio and podcasts, which we're indexing on Keepeek too. This year, I've also added a "dessinothèque" category, as we have a lot of illustrators at the Museum (of plants, animals, and soon scientists). And, as it's a tool with lots of features - which I intend to exploit to the full - we have a new project to integrate scientifically validated text content, particularly for educational purposes.
They will also be available for free consultation on the front-office, at least for web teams, who will also be able to deposit their content so as to keep it in an archive and avoid having to repeat the writing work several times over the years and in different departments.
Any advice for companies still hesitating to switch to digital asset management?
Maybe not advice, but I've got my arguments! First of all, the undeniable security compared to a Drive or a shared server, and the storage limit that can quickly become a problem with this type of tool. Back-up is also very important, and that's not possible with a Drive.
And then, as I said earlier, support and being able to talk to people who understand the project contributes greatly to the success of a DAM project.
I know it can be hard to justify a budget for a solution like DAM, when you see that a drive or a server costs less, but I can't recommend switching to a solution like this because it' s a huge time-saver and incomparably comfortable to use.
Today, MNHN has around 70,000 published media on its front-office and 50,000 in its archives.
Every year, 10,000 photos and 100 films are added.
