Top Rated CONTENTdm Alternatives
* CONTENTdm allows us to display the Library's digitized historical materials on a single platform. The public interface is fairly easy to use and allows visitors to view digital objects, download web-quality copies, share them on social media and comment (providing us with crowd-sourced corrections and additional information. On the administrative side, uploading new objects is relatively easy through the CONTENTdm client, which also allows corrections (including batch corrections). Minor corrections can also be made through the web administrative interface.
* CONTENTdm's controlled vocabulary makes it possible to standardize search terms across multiple collections.
* OCLC offers both hosted and self-hosted options. We took advantage of hosting to free up our IT staff Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
* The product is marketed as being usable out of the box, but we found that extensive configuration and customization was necessary to achieve the look and functionality we wanted. One of our goals was to present different types of materials or thematically related materials such as our wine-related photographs or Sonoma County Fair-related materials as branded collections; CONTENTdm allows any number of separate collections, but at the cost of having to manage each collection separately. While some institutions have created virtual branded collections, we don't currently have the in-house expertise to do the coding required and as a result, managing materials split up across multiple collections has become problematic.
* Because we make use of controlled vocabularies, making corrections via the web administrative interface when there are multiple unrecognized terms in a record is difficult.
* Ongoing costs are a big consideration for us. We are currently at the mid-level for both number of objects and for storage size. Although we have not added new objects as rapidly as expected, we will need to evaluate our continued use of CONTENTdm when we get closer to the higher license level because our costs will double at that point.
* We have not made use of the included streaming audio and video capabilities because we haven't been able to make them work to our satisfaction. We have instead used scripts to stream those media from external sources.
* The hosted option doesn't allow direct management of uploaded design and functional assets such as website images, scripts and custom pages, so old assets cannot be deleted (this doesn't affect the use of newly uploaded assets)
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25 out of 26 Total Reviews for CONTENTdm
Overall Review Sentiment for CONTENTdm
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CONTENTdm has a clean and easy to use interface.There are a number of customizable options to personalize the program for individual institutions. The fields can be limited to include just the ones that the institution uses most, and the OCR capability has been updated over the years to provide a much more accurate OCR transcript. The same file that was originally OCR in 2011 and featured more special characters than letters now has nearly flawless OCR. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It is not specific to just CONTENTdm, but I dislike how tedious it can be to update/correct records from batch uploads- there's no good fix to this, however, as it is the nature of the profession. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
This review is in regards to a Contentdm license obtained through a State Library for participation in the State's Digital Public Library. The procurement of the software was done by the library, and my organization does not pay the license fee.
Adding files and collections to Contentdm is easy, and it maintains good organization. Metadata fields are comprehensive and adjustable on the front and back end. The search functions and links in the metadata on the public facing page are nice features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The default viewer is not very good, especially for documents. Finding the right size in the browser window isn't a given, and you often have to pan around a page to read. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
We have been using CONTENTdm since 2002 (pre-OCLC) when the Libraries first started building access to digital collections. Because of its longevity in our institution, we have stayed with it. Impressions of it are generally positive. It has allowed my small academic unit to have a fully functional and searchable teaching collection of images that is accessible to the entire university, including our many branch campuses. In that respect, it meets our needs nicely. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
CONTENTdm is not an intuitive product to use, and requires a bit of in-depth training. The uploading process is not reliable, and the user will often receive error notices that are not easily understood.
The product is also quite expensive. If my department was not collaborating with the larger Library infrastructure, not only would we not be able to afford it, but we also would not be able to support it technically. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
As a Librarian with a concentration in digital libraries and specialization in metadata, CONTENTdm is the perfect software for your collection needs; no matter, the size of the collection. The entry fields are very helpful and make training easier for those entering the position for the first time. Tag fields allow you to create your own taxonomy within your collection to help users have a better experience in the information retrieval process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Picture Upload functionality, if I have multiple images, I would like dual or multi-level picture features so that users for example can see front and back of the image all in 1 multi window view or be able to flip item over in 1 click and see the back of images when necessary (this would be very useful for post cards). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
ContentDM is strong in allowing flexibility of data. Field mapping, import, export and harvesting functions are all very good and provide a good platform with which to create opportunities to build great web apps. It also provides a relatively decent web interface for smaller institutions who do not have the staff, money or time to develop their own. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
ContentDM can be a little clunky in it's uploading process. It throws errors which often have no definition leaving the user to wonder about the many variables that could have caused the error. It also has a bit of an archaic infrastructure on the back end which has lead to several glitches and problems along the way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
ContentDM is an user friendly interface that easily adds content to your document management system. I was using COntentDM for description of a video collection on an university digital archive. The tagging was effortless and the content was easily integrated into the archive. It also has a small learning curve, so it no time to learn and understand how to use ContentDM. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
For all its great benefits, ContentDM is very expensive. If you are a smaller historical institution or university, you may not have the budget to purchase the product. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The interface is very pleasant to work with, which is important when you spend hours at a time on record creation and metadata entry. The consistency of public interfaces between repositories with CONTENTdm instances for their digital collections is also very helpful when interacting with the program as a researcher.
The ability to pre-populate certain metadata fields at the collection level is very time-saving. I can also attest to the fact that it is fairly easy to train student workers to work successfully with the program to complete a wide variety of tasks. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I have heard from various sources that once a CONTENTdm instance becomes particularly full of many digital object records, the system tends to slow down. So while in theory a repository could have an "unlimited" instance of the program, they may actually need to consider having two instances to keep functionality high enough for there to be a good experience for both front-end and back-end users.
While the price point of CONTENTdm was feasible for my former employer, the cost of this program is not something that I could implement in my current role, even though I am very happy with the features and functionality of the DAM system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
the program has a big library and several tools to use. it is easy to learn but you need to dedicate at least a month to be at least 80% familiar with the program. It is a good option if you do not know how to code or if you don't have the staff qualified for a more advance program. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It can be slow and confusing at first but once you know how it works it is easy. again you have to dedicate time to learn and understand the program. When i used this program i was only doing that in my job Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
CONTENTdm allowed you to have custom metadata for individual collections based on Dublin Core while maintaining the ability to search across all collections using Dublin Core as well. CONTENTdm allowed you to index certain metadata fields and make them browsable, however, with the addition of the browsable facet-style feature, this functionality was lost. CONTENTdm allowed you set up splash pages for each digital collection if necessary. Integration with Acrobat PDF was excellent, including indexing and integration of Adobe Acrobat search highlighting. Originally, metadata was harvested by WorldCat which was then harvested by Google but this has since changed. Collections must now be promoted manually. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
During the import and conversion, an additional copy was written to another location. This feature was intended to aid in the processing workflow but added the headache of having another local copy. As clearly stated by CONTENTdm, this product was intended for access and display and no promises were made regarding security and integrity of collections. For example, if the collections were lost because of data issues, you were expected to maintain your own copy and you might have to restore it in the worst case. Customers should be aware that this is not a digital asset management system and must develop strategies for protecting their digital archival collections. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
