I’m experimenting with the Reading List format: Instead of providing an exhaustive overview of the last month’s Digital Asset Management articles, it lists just a few links (from November and December 2017) which I highly recommend reading. As always, I pick them from the constant stream of blog posts you can see float by on Planet DAM. For more curated DAM links, see the weekly Digital Asset Management.com Links and Tracy Wolfe’s 10 things on the 10th.

For a look into the future of DAM, read the two Ralph Windsor pieces What it Will Take for Artificial Intelligence to Become Useful For DAM and Blockchain And Content DAM: Myth, Reality And Practical Applications.

“What is the organization's vision for DAM?” Michael Shattuck challenges us to “dream bigger”.

From animal species detection to similar images matching, Peter Krogh explains the various capabilities of computational tagging, i.e. “AI”-powered image recognition.

Audits, reporting, governance, documentation, feedback: Three articles highlight the ongoing work of a DAM administrator / champion – Courtney Roe’s Five foundations of DAM, Nate Holmes’ DAM admin guide, and Emily Kolvitz’ 12 months of DAM projects. Related: Emily writes about the many hats of the digital librarian.

“We’re wasting other people’s time! We’re risking a lawsuit! Our competitors are doing it!” 10 things your boss needs to hear you say by Kristin Twiford is a nice take on DAM ROI.

Mark Davey crowns the DAM vendors of the year 2017 and previews the Codified DAM Consultant.

Stuart Myles looks back at the work of the IPTC in 2017 which involved photo and video metadata, NewsML-G2, RightsML, rules-based classification and more.

“Content architects can use lists, content or files types for defining and capturing master data in the [Picturepark] Content Platform”, writes David Diamond. That sounds interesting!

Instead of just talking about metadata, Emily Kolvitz teaches 6 embedded metadata exercises, hands-on with ExifTool, Excel and Python.

Henrik de Gyor interviews DAM practitioners Dan Rosenberg (Time Inc.) and Jonathan Phillips, and Nora Gehin collects the best quotes from her 2017 “DAM Champ” interviews.

For many more links, check out the monster blog post by MerlinOne, 50 Best Tips, Presentations, and Resources on DAM.

I wish you a great year 2018!