Managing Art. Digital Asset Management for Collectors and Galleries

Abstract: Background and Objectives: This project explored the needs of art galleries and collectors for Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMS), in order to fill an existing knowledge gap and help companies to analyse these needs. Bespoken difficulties in the field significantly challenge the development of DAMS and have thus also hampered the evolvement of high-quality systems for the art market. There seems to be a large variety of tools that do not sufficiently fulfil their purpose, whilst collectors and galleries interested in using DAMS are left without an efficient tool to manage their art successfully. This unexplored research area is approached using two stages of data collection. By gathering the insights of both IT specialists and practitioners in galleries and collections, the aim is to gradually better understand the needs for DAMS for the management of art, and shed light on ways to improve efficiency thereof. The objective is to guide software developers towards creating high-quality DAMS for the target group. Findings: Using a qualitative design, this cross-sectional research established a common list of needs and identified factors enabling the differentiation between various art galleries and collections. Overall, results indicate similar needs of galleries and collectors for DAMS: Cloud-based solutions and modern identification technologies have been identified as commonly mentioned future needs for certain galleries and collections, however these appear to face the impediment of concerns stemming in part from a lack of IT knowledge in the creative industry, as well as a general hesitation to invest. Implications and Conclusion: The findings are merely indicative, but can serve as a broad orientation for the development of DAMS towards a design that is adaptable to galleries’ and collectors’ needs more targeted than current market solutions. Even though this research is only exploratory, it can be argued that the findings are a crucial first step towards the future development of DAMS.