How Universities Make Campus Content Easier to Find and Use

See how six universities use PhotoShelter to get game photos to social teams during play, help staff find campus images on their own, and reuse foo...

When someone on campus needs content for a project, they shouldn’t have to track down the person who created it before they can get started. A shared digital asset management (DAM) library gives them a place to find photos and videos, with access that matches what they’re allowed to use.

But making that work takes more than moving files into a new system. The way content comes in affects how easily someone can find it later, and finding an asset doesn’t help much if they can’t download it or share it with a colleague.

These six university teams use PhotoShelter at different points in that process, from collecting new content to putting older footage back to work.

Get new content into the library while it’s still useful

At University of Maryland Athletics, photographers might be covering several games at once, including freelancers working away from campus. Director of Photography Mackenzie Miles needed their images to arrive consistently so the people covering each event knew where to find them.

“We can have five games going on at the same time”
Mackenzie Miles, Director of Photography, University of Maryland Athletics

With a real-time workflow, photographers send images directly into designated folders during games. Maryland organizes its library by sport and activity, giving staff a clearer place to look once content arrives.

“Being able to transmit in-game with one click has been a huge change for us.”
Mackenzie Miles, Director of Photography, University of Maryland Athletics

Smart Galleries use metadata to gather relevant images for marketing and design, so those teams don’t have to ask Mackenzie to pull together each collection.

That means the work of making content useful starts when it’s uploaded, while the event is still happening.

See how Maryland Athletics manages incoming content.

Keep the content you share connected to your archive

Liberty University’s photography team had a different problem: its delivery system and archive weren’t connected, so images could reach their intended audience without ever making it into permanent storage.

The team brought those steps together in PhotoShelter, where people can access files in the same place they’re stored. Photographers don’t have to treat delivery and archiving as separate jobs.

“Being able to upload images and have users easily access them where they permanently live has been a lifesaver.”
KJ Jugar, Senior Photographer, Liberty University

Liberty also designed the library so colleagues could find and download images themselves, with access settings that let different departments use the content they need.

For anyone managing a campus archive, it’s worth asking what happens after a file leaves the creative team. If sharing it creates another copy in another system, the next person may still need help tracking it down.

Read how Liberty connects its archive and delivery process.

Help people find what they need without knowing your filing system

At the University of Northern Iowa, campus creators once had to visit the communications office, choose images, and take files away on external drives. Even the people managing the collection spent time searching manually.

UNI now gives campus users access to a shared library, with AI Visual Search helping them find images that haven’t been tagged in detail.

That’s useful when different contributors describe content differently, or when a designer searches for a detail no one thought to include in the metadata. The social team also filters by date to find imagery that reflects the current student community.

“Now I can search things like students walking outside in snow, and it helps a lot.”
Sarah Judisch, Senior Graphic Designer, University of Northern Iowa

Colleagues can look for the scene they need without first learning how someone else named a folder or described a shoot.

See how UNI makes campus content easier to discover.

Give creative teams a better way to choose what they’ll use

Butler University’s team knew how much time a difficult search could take, with one older image taking Campus Photographer Zach Bolinger an hour and 40 minutes to locate.

A searchable library helps colleagues find options without knowing when a shoot happened, while Smart Galleries bring recent student photography together so the social team can see what’s new.

Once people have found possible images, Butler uses Workspaces to collect options and narrow them down for projects. That gives colleagues a place to compare selections through PhotoShelter’s content collaboration tools.

“I use Workspaces to give a range of options, narrow down choices, and provide that gamut of choice.”
Philip Eichacker, Art Director, Butler University

The creative team can explore more of what’s available instead of falling back on the same familiar images simply because they’re easier to find.

Read how Butler finds and selects fresh campus content.

Share approved content with the people who need it

Vanderbilt University needed a shared library that could serve different colleges and divisions without giving every user access to every file.

Its previous DAM confused campus users, especially when they didn’t know how content had been organized. With PhotoShelter, the university gives teams a central place to find assets, with access settings that match different audiences.

“Instead of the university having 12 or 15 tools throughout every different college, … having that centralized repository has really helped.”
Kyle Carson, Digital Asset Manager, Vanderbilt University

For projects involving several teams, Workspaces bring selected assets together without opening the full library. Smart Galleries also help relevant new content reach the people who need it.

That approach makes content sharing more manageable for Digital Asset Manager Kyle Carson, who reports fewer search-related questions as colleagues find more of what they need independently.

See how Vanderbilt shares content across campus.

Make existing footage useful for the next project

At Western University of Health Sciences, footage could become difficult to reuse after the project it was shot for, especially when colleagues had to deal with large video files.

The team builds a shared B-roll library in PhotoShelter using compressed MP4 clips, allowing people to preview and download footage without handling the massive raw originals.

“Maybe I shot this video six months ago, but that footage could be useful for this shoot over here”
Steven Webber, Video Producer and Photographer, Western University of Health Sciences

That video asset management workflow gives existing footage another chance to be used. Someone working on a new project can look through material the team has already captured rather than leaving it tied to the original production.

WesternU also keeps brand materials in the library, with employee access and public media folders serving different needs.

Read how WesternU puts existing footage back to work.

Give campus teams a way to keep projects moving

Across these examples, each team has made a different part of the process easier for the next person. Maryland makes incoming images easier to locate, while Butler helps colleagues choose what they’ll use. WesternU prepares footage so another project can benefit from it later.

If your team still handles every content request, follow one asset from upload through its next use. Where does someone have to stop and ask for help, and what would let them continue on their own?

Explore PhotoShelter for education to see how your campus can make photos and videos easier to find and use.