Three years ago, the Cleveland Museum of Art chose to leverage technology to support its lofty goals of artistic excellence, scholarship, and community engagement. The museum developed and implemented a comprehensive digital strategy to activate its world-class collection, connect art and people, promote new scholarship and support research, promote on site and online attendance, increase financial support, promote both external and internal collaboration, and help staff work smarter by targeting artwork information, interpretive content, research resources, and supporter-relationship data. This paper will explore the scope and core elements the CMA’s digital strategy; staffing requirements and the interdepartmental steering team put in place to guide digital strategy; the backend systems put in place to support flexible access, both in theory and practice; and the effort required to pull everything together for recent high-profile information-based projects including Gallery One, ArtLens for iPad and smartphone, Collection Online, Central Table, and cloud-based Archival Repository. The combination of master data and backend systems has moved ‘ground zero,’ and eliminated the need to start from scratch. This paper will summarize the process put in place to review the needs and guide implementation for new technology projects, reflect on lessons learned, provide practical advice for practically eliminating ‘one off’ projects.

1. MOVING
GROUND ZERO
IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL STRATEGY AT
THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART
Jane Alexander, Chief Information Officer
Niki Krause, Application Services Manager

5. Goals of Gallery One
Build audiences—including families, youth, school groups, and
occasional visitors by providing a fun and engaging environment
for visitors with all levels of knowledge about art
Highlight featured artworks to the Greater Cleveland community
and the world
Propel visitors into the primary galleries with greater enthusiasm,
understanding, and excitement about the collection
Develop and galvanize visitor interest, bringing visitors back to
the museum again and again

7. 7

8. 8

9. 9

12. Development of ArtLens
for iPhone and Android

14. Gallery One and ArtLens were the
first beneficiaries of the museum’s
digital strategy
CMA wanted the technology
implementation to be innovative,
intelligent and in-line with tech
industry best practices

15. Data Scrubbing
When your objects are projected on a large wall
you have daily opportunities to “SEE” your data

17. 17

18. All interactives can all be remotely
rebooted via LogMeIn

19. 19

20. How my laziness defined
CMA’s digital strategy

21. GALLERY ONE + ARTLENS
digital strategy test case

22. IMTS Applications Team
Will, Andrea, Linda, Niki, Jeanne

23. How do we do it?
• backend systems
– flexible
– interoperable
• key data for artwork, events, people
– clean
– current
• reusable content

24. DIGITAL STRATEGY
looking at the big picture

25. OBJECTIVES
• activate the collection
• connect art and audience through active experience
• promote new scholarship
• support research
• facilitate internal and external collaboration
• drive attendance
• increase revenue
• streamline work

26. Museum-wide Digital Strategy

27. Common Core Infrastructure
Cisco
Mesh Environment
High end cabling system
POWER
UPS and Generator Backup
CENTRALIZED STORAGE
DAM, CCMS, Backup, F Drive, Virtualized
Servers
SECURITY
IP Cameras, Access Control,
Monitoring
VIRTUALIZATION
Servers, Storage, Networks, Applications *
BUILDING SYSTEMS
Lighting Control, HVAC monitoring,
Parking Automation
COMMUNICATIONS
VoIP Phones, DAS*, Digital Radios, Paging
System, VoIP Telco Service, Email
Integration
CO-TENANT SUPPORT
Network and Voice Access for Bon
Appetit
WIFI
ArtLens, Guest Access, Centrally
Managed
SECURE ACCESS
Firewall, VPN, Content Filtering, Multi Layer
Protection, Remote Access
AUDIO VISUAL
Digital Signage, Board Room, Classrooms,
Auditoriums
INTERNET ACCESS
OneCommunity, Access to Third Frontier and
National Lamda Rail Networks, Ultra High Speed
CLOUD HOSTING VENDORS
BlueBridge (Archive), Amazon (ArtLens),
Office 365 (Email)*WEBSITE
Internally Hosted, Secure
Donation Portals
GALLERY ONE
Integration, Application Load
Balancing
Common Core
Infrastructure
Technology
Systems
March 2014
* Denotes an item that is planned
END USERS
Mostly Laptops, Windows 7,
Network Printing
ACTIVE DIRECTORY
Application Level Single Sign-on *
APPLICATIONS
Support Structure, Access Control
HELP DESK
User Support and Training
The CMA common core infrastructure platform built out as part of the recent
renovation project has allowed us to implement technology that was not possible
prior to the renovation. This platform gives us the ability to support multiple
systems without the need to build out a separate infrastructure for each. This
helps save resources both financially and in staff time to manage and operate. In
addition, it allows for a quicker implementation of new and upgraded systems
along with standardizing system support since we are leveraging this common
platform
CMA’s Common Core Infrastructure Platform

28. A FEW OF THE MANY…
• digital asset management
• archival repository
• open-source website
• mobile site
• dashboard
• central table
• integrated CCMS

29. NO ONE-OFFS!

31. PROJECTS
showcase

32. ARCHIVAL
REPOSITORY
records in the cloud

34. APPROACH
• inventory digital materials
• identify appropriate standards
• storage platform+management software
• map metadata
• define workflows
• ingest+iterate

35. • in-house server/storage
• hosted/SaaS solutions
• cloud-based server/storage
– full access to server & management software
– top-flight local provider
– same ISP backbone
– out-of-region redundancy
PLATFORM CHOICE

36. REFINING
digital asset management

38. PICTION DAM UPGRADE
• Piction 7 application upgrade
• flattened legacy record structure (1:1)
• expanded staff-requested tools
– export PPT and Excel
– contact sheets
– batch downloads
• integrated with CCMS
• turbocharged downstream use

39. User Functionality

41. BUILDING TO FIT
integrated CCMS

42. OBJECT CATALOGING

43. DOCUMENT LIBRARIES

44. INTEGRATE WorldCat

45. INTEGATE Getty Vocabularies / VIAF

46. COLLABORATE

47. FLEXIBILITY
website CMS systems

49. GOALS OF MIGRATION TO DRUPAL CMS
• staff intranet
– ease of use
– true content management by and for staff
– ability to search documents, show news and alerts
• museum website
– consolidation of Sitecore website and Wordpress blog
– understandable content and categorization
– massive migration of data (>65,000 pages)
• library website
– migration from LAMP site, opacs, and Wordpress

50. STAFF INTRANET

51. STAFF INTRANET

52. GOALS OF WEBSITE CMS CHANGE
• fix things that were “broken”
– give content pages URLs
– facilitate SEO
– reinstate images to Google index
– make social sharing work properly
• follow already-established branding guidelines
• update layout and functionality where possible
• incorporate responsive design

53. HOMEPAGE

54. CONTENT PAGES
CONTENT PAGES

55. CONTENT PAGES

56. COLLECTION ONLINE
search functionality

57. COLLECTION ONLINE
artwork information & images

58. RESPONSIVE DESIGN VS. MOBILE SITE

60. TRANSPARANCY
dashboard

62. INTELLIGENCE
central table

66. DIGITAL STRATEGY
It’s all about big picture