Located in the medieval city of Haarlem, on the Western outskirts of Amsterdam, the Teylers Museum is known as the world’s best-preserved 18th-century public knowledge institution for the arts and sciences. Open to the public since 1784, the museum traces its roots back to Pieter Teyler van der Hulst, a wealthy silk merchant with a tremendous love of the arts, philosophy, and science. When Teyler van der Hulst died in 1778, he donated roughly 80 million euros and his collection of art, books, natural objects, and geological specimens, to form a new foundation dedicated to the guiding principal that, “knowledge is power and knowledge makes people independent and happier.”
Fast forward 200 years, and the majority of the museum’s collection has been digitized. However, the process of digitization created a problem. With more than 350,000 digital assets, the Teylers Museum team found themselves in need of a solution that would enable them to effectively organize, share, store, and preserve Pieter Teyler van der Hulst’s historic collection. In 2010, Head of Photography and Digital Rights Martijn Zegel found that solution in Extensis Portfolio.
“My colleagues are very enthusiastic about Portfolio,” Zegel stated. “They especially appreciate the images of three-dimensional materials such as fossils, instruments, coins, and the herbaria.”
By utilizing the MrSID compression technology available in Portfolio, the Teylers Museum was able to compress its high-resolution digital images to less than half their original size - with no image degradation. A 6.4GB .PSD file was flattened and saved as a 2.53GB .SID file. And with smaller file sizes comes reduced storage costs and improved efficiency in sharing and finding files.
“You can immediately see the benefits of the compressed .SID files, delivering high-resolution pictures with an uncompromised visual experience,” Zegel added. “Using NetPublish, the departments’ customers can now make their choices based on the preview of an image, and if permission has been granted, download whatever they need as they need it.”
Zegel is obviously pleased with the results, but more importantly, feedback from external customers has been extremely positive. They appreciate the dramatically faster delivery of content, and that despite the impressive compression algorithm at work, that images remain vibrant, detailed, and clear.
To see exactly how Extensis Portfolio could improve your digital asset management efforts, contact us. We’d be happy to show you around!