Tate
One of the world's best-known art institutions, managing large volumes of digital collection and photography material.
Case study
Tate Digital Asset Management for a World-Famous Gallery
Tate uses iBase to manage, index and distribute large collections of digitised works of art, supporting photography workflows, collection access, copyright management and long-term internal image use.
Project summary
Long-Term DAM Partnership
Tate has worked with iBase since the late 1990s, using integrated systems to support digitised art collections and the practical work of the Photography Department.
Internal Image Management
Store, manage, index and distribute digitised works of art and related photographic records across internal teams.
Workflow and Reporting
Track production stages, indexing status, approvals, copyright details and workflow progress through management information reports.
Collection workflow
Indexing from Digital Images
Indexing is carried out from on-screen images to avoid unnecessary handling of originals. Once indexed, works are assigned one of three sign-off statuses that reflect the level of available interpretative information.
Representatives from curatorial, education and picture library teams review samples of indexed works, helping maintain consistency and integrity across the collection.
Digitised Works
Images can be indexed and reviewed without increasing physical handling of the original material.
Sign-Off Statuses
Three sign-off stages show how complete each record is in terms of interpretative information.
Cross-Team Review
Curators, education teams and picture library staff can review sample records before broader use.
Thematic Discovery
Comprehensive indexing creates rich routes into the collection for future research and interpretation.
DAM controls
Metadata, Copyright and Management Reporting
The iBase Image Management System automatically gathers metadata on record status, recording who, what and when details at each production stage.
It also assists with photographic records and copyright management, while providing reporting tools that help track and analyse workflow progress.
Client view
More Than 25 Years of Use
Tate have been using iBase products since 1999 to import and manage our three main collections of images: Collections, Conservation and ImageNet. Between them they hold our accessioned and un-accessioned works, images of conservation work carried out, artist portraits, learning events, installation shots, architectural photography, etc. The iBase team provide an excellent support service. This has been our experience of iBase for over twenty-five years!
Tate Photography Department
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