Adobe Bridge vs. CONTENTdm

If you're working with tons of files and different types of files and you have to keep them sorted out and be able to tell the differences within the files...this is the best option for you. It will make your life so much easier being able to preview everything quickly while seeing the small details. I do know that some photographers are really happy with how Lightroom catalogs their images, but I think for anyone doing major compositing or video work, Bridge is hands down the way to go. It just saves you so much time and headaches.

Incentivized

CONTENTdm is well-suited for smaller organizations as a simple solution to present a digital collection on the web. If your need is complex and requires digital preservation as part of the workflow, it may not be the best solution.

Incentivized

• User friendly.
• Works well in combination with it's other adobe products.
• Like that's it's included in the cost of Creative Cloud.

Incentivized

• Constant URLs
• User interface is good
• Run by OCLC, not likely to disappear

Incentivized

• User interface could be more friendly--currently it has a very techy feel
• Sometimes it’s a bit slow to load the program initially

Incentivized

• As a digital asset management system, one would expect the capability of managing preservation, which CONTENTdm lacks.
• Lack of batch updating and other advanced metadata management capabilities.
• The usage statistics does not work, and the company is not planning to fix it, at least based the interaction with tech support staff. Customers were referred to use Google Analytics.

Incentivized

Bridge is just easier and quicker. It suits our purposes more

Incentivized

We selected CONTENTdm because it had a good reputation, was used by many institutions, provided a good product, and supplied feedback and monthly reports. We are wondering about DPLA and if that will be the next evolution or platform.

Incentivized

• It's saved me probably thousands of hours at this point. I used to spend so much time looking for different files and now I can find them all quickly.
• I can now decide which are the 15 images I will deliver from a portrait session within 10 minutes. It used to take me around an hour to open them each up and start deciding.
• I quit negatively speaking to myself for misnaming files and then never being able to find them.
• I only complain about Adobe Bridge when it doesn't work with a firewall and I have to turn it off or restart my computer.

Incentivized

• It helped us to get started with our digital collections projects at a relatively low cost.
• As our needs grew, it became apparent that we needed something more powerful, and that provides better workflows and better statistics and is able to handle the whole life cycle of digitation projects.

Incentivized