Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review Image Relay is intelligently designed for any marketer, especially if your products require a library of images and video and especially if you feel like your team could use some quality onboarding to make sure everything is set up right and to make sure your team is equipped to use the software effectively. Specifically speaking, since we have so many products and we're building a bigger direct relationship with customers, it was important that we have an easy way to store and access assets that can represent those products and resonate with potential customers. Image Relay also made it really easy to group assets for sharing with influencers and other marketing partners. Dropbox and Google Drive may have their place and their functionalities that set them apart, so it's important to not look at Image Relay like one of those older document services storage spaces — though those companies could learn a lot from how Image Relay helps marketers enrich their assets and store them smartly.
Read full review Pros Constant URLs User interface is good Run by OCLC, not likely to disappear Lori Atkins University Archivist of South Texas Archives
Read full review Enables us to organize a large number of files in an easy-to-use format Keeps our files safe. Much of the work we do is private until our partners approve of our marketing going public so file security is critical to our operation. Image Relay makes it easy for our team to track and access a wide range of files - especially photos and contracts. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review The AI tagging terms are too generic to really be helpful to us. When we did our initial upload the system couldn't pull in old dates, so everything has a date of the day it was uploaded. It will be a while before searching by "most recent" works properly. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I believe once all of our staff see how efficient Image Relay is in managing our digital assets, there will be no question that the cost vs. value will mandate continued use moving forward. It literally will pay for itself in saved staff time, I believe.
Read full review Usability Image Relay is very straightforward. The experience and interface mimic things were all used to using so it makes it very easy to learn and use. They didn't try to reinvent the wheel by making a fancy tool, they just made something that works and does exactly what you need it to do. They also have an awesome team that is quick to help and answer any questions along the way.
Read full review Support Rating Amazing. We are having a quick call once a week to be sure we are right on track. They answer all our questions right away and if they are missing something they will just find the answer and get back to us as fast as possible. There is no need to look elsewhere!
Read full review Implementation Rating The Image Relay team was very helpful in guiding us through the process. Excellent customer service and guidance.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Lori Atkins University Archivist of South Texas Archives
Read full review We were using our in-house storage NAS system and Backup on DVD and hard drive. The issue is that we lost a lot of data by it either crashing or becoming unreadable. And it's very difficult to organize and share data. To share data we were using WeTransfer, but the issue is that the link expired in 7 days.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Image Relay has only offered positive impacts for me. The search function is great when used properly — our photographers can input tons of metadata that is later used to find certain teams or players within the website. I don't mind having duplicates in the system as long as they are in places they need to be, but Image Relay does tell you when you've uploaded something multiple times which could be helpful to others. Read full review ScreenShots