Wednesday, December 19, 2007

SajaraR Web-based Geographic Digital Asset Management Software

Avencia Incorporated, an award-winning, Philadelphia-based geographic analysis and software development company has developed a unique and innovative web-based digital asset management (DAM) for georeferencing, managing, searching, and displaying an organization's digital assets from anywhere in the world.

Unlike other DAM solutions that only manage structured content or others that are using maps as the basis for the assets' searches, Sajara's uniqueness lies in its use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. It is able to retrieve assets by enabling users to type an address, street intersection or neighborhood. The location-based searches return all assets at that address and its vicinity, and display them on a map. Sajara is also able to support Avencia's EspheroT global geocoding engine, enabling literally any address search in the world. Sajara offers other more traditional search functions such as keyword, date range, tag, author/photographer name, collection ID, or any combination of these, and can accommodate a broad base of digital content such as photos, maps, audio and video. Sajara consists of two major components:

First, it has a robust Archive Manager, accessible by authorized users only from any web browser at any location, which supports an extensive set of completely customizable metadata fields used to catalog and manage data associated with each collection. It includes a flexible geocoding engine that is capable of using ESRI ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server, Google Maps, Yahoo, Microsoft Virtual Earth, or ESRI ArcWeb Services. The Archive Manager interface is also able to generate customizable reports on site and search activity, user accounts, user behavior/ search patterns, asset creation, and scan requests.

Second, it is a powerful, intuitive and easy-to-use web site that enables the public to search assets by their geographic location, date, keyword, tag, and any combination of these. Users are then able to interact with the collection: they can add to, tag and manage assets in their "favorites"; share them with friends via email; easily report errors on the information associated with each asset; request assets to be scanned; and bookmark their queries, which then get automatically updated each time a new asset is uploaded within the user's search parameters. Because Sajara has an E-Commerce module, users are able to purchase copies of the assets as well, bringing additional revenue to an organization that chooses to add this module.

The display of assets includes descriptive information, map location, thumbnail images, video and audio streams. Moreover, because Sajara supports both the RSS and GeoRSS standards, users are able to see the returns of their queries in Google Maps. Further, the latest version of Sajara now supports KML (Keyhole Markup Language) enabling integration with the 3-D environment o Google Earth. Lastly, thanks to its Mobile module, an organization's assets can be accessed from most cell phones, handheld computers and other internet-connected mobile devices.

Sajara is ideal for organizations, businesses, and agencies that have extensive repositories that need to be accessed by the public and/or staff members located anywhere in the world. Such organizations include: archives, museums, heritage tourism organizations, historical societies, municipalities, restaurant/tourism industry, real estate companies, and environmental agencies.

The system can be fully customized and skinned to reflect the brand of each organization. One Sajara implementation is at the Philadelphia Department of Records (DoR) PhillyHistory.org - www.phillyhistory.org - which has enabled the public to access tens of thousands of historic photos that had been essentially inaccessible and unsearchable for decades, and were rapidly deteriorating in non-archival boxes. Now, PhillyHistory.org houses more than 47,000 of the estimated 2 million photos at the Philadelphia City Archives. Scanned photos are added at the rate of about 2,000 a month and each asset that is uploaded on the site is re-stored in acid-free envelops and boxes.

PhillyHistory.org recently won the Philadelphia Magazine's Best of Philly 2007 award and the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA)'s 2007 Exemplary Systems in Government Distinguished System award. The site now attracts more than 11,500 unique visitors per month who have contributed to more than $24,000 of revenue since the site inception in 2005. Public access plus revenue generation has created a more sustainable operation and is a real win-win situation.

"Avencia had really wonderful ideas for building an easy-to-manage system and for making it widely available to the public with different interactive features. They have a very strong track record here at the City [of Philadelphia]. PhillyHistory.org has really exceeded our expectations." -- Joan Decker, Commissioner of Philadelphia Department of Records

About Avencia
Avencia is an award-winning, Philadelphia-based geographic analysis and software development firm specializing in the creation of innovative location-based software tools to enhance decision-making processes. Avencia believes these location-based technologies can help promote the emergence of more dynamic, vibrant communities. For more information, visit www.avencia.com

For more information about Sajara, visit http://www.avencia.com/Products.aspx or contact Rachel Cheetham-Richard at 215-701-7502 or Email Contact. Avencia will be presenting Sajara at the upcoming American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, Jan. 11-14, 2208; Museums and the Web Expo 2008 in Montreal, Canada, April 8-12, 2008 and at the American Association of Museums Annual Meeting and Expo in Denver, CO, April 27-May 1, 2008.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:43 AM

    The software name is misspelled in the title and is actually "Sajara" ®

    ReplyDelete
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