CASE STUDY: Cal Poly

Using Canto Cumulus to manage digital assets and teach digital asset management.

The Need for Digital Asset Management at Cal Poly.

Recognized as one of the premier graphic communication programs in the United
States, the Graphic Communication Department at California Polytechnic State
University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo, prepares graduates for positions in printing,
publishing, digital media, packaging and related professions.
Product Edition:
State-of-the-art hardware and software help prime the Department’s graduates to Cumulus Workgroup
enter the workplace with the skills employers demand. The Department was Plug-ins and Add-ons Used:
founded in 1946, and for its first 50 years it relied on traditional media assets, such • Internet Client Pro (ICP): Managing 20
as film, prints, paste-ups, etc. As digital media was added to the mix, Professor Mac and PC clients
• Web Publisher Pro (WPP): Unlimited
Mike Blum, who heads the Web and Digital Media Concentration, quickly realized license-free Web publishing
two things: • QXP Companion: Cumulus integration
• Decades of physical assets, already difficult enough to manage, were about to be with QuarkXPress that includes drag &
drop into layouts and automatic PDF cre-
augmented by an explosion of digital assets. ation
• Teaching students to manage digital assets was going to be as important as teach-
ing students to create digital assets. Why Cumulus:
The system Cal Poly chose to manage its assets—and help teach its students
• Robust feature set
about the merits of digital asset management—was Canto Cumulus. Blum cites
• Fast set-up
the program’s “robust feature set” as the deciding factor, but time was certainly the
motivating factor. • Powerful search and retrieval
capabilities
Analog Gives Way to Digital. Since the early 1990s, Blum and others at Cal Poly had • Auto-detection of existing
“We had thousands of photos in the form of conven- been scanning the slides in their archive. As digital metadata
tional slides and prints, yet we had difficulty using photography matured, high-resolution digital photos • Centralized asset storage
the archive effectively because we couldn’t find any- became common. What were once mountains of pho-
thing fast enough,” Blum admits. “And, if there’s one tos had become towers of CDs. Digital—yes—but no • Support for any file type
thing more challenging to find than a physical photo, more manageable. The Department needed a single • DAM application commonly
it’s a digital rendering of that photo.” portal through which it could find and access anything used in the workplace
it needed—any time the department needed it.
And Cal Poly had plenty of both.

YESTERDAY AND TODAY (Left) Cal Poly’s

Graphic Communication Department offers
state of the art instruction to students, just
as it has done for over 60 years. (Below)
State of the art looked a bit different in this
circa 1985 photo of the lab, which comes
from the Department’s 60th Anniversary
Cumulus catalog.

Canto, the Canto logo and Cumulus are registered trademarks of Canto. Other company and product names might be trademarks of their respective owners.
C|CAS/CalPoly/V1.1/06.2009 Copyright ©2009 Canto GmbH. All rights reserved. www.canto.com Page 1 of 2
CASE STUDY: Cal Poly

This need drove Blum to consider digital asset TRACKING

management, and his choice of Cumulus proved HISTORY During its
to be a smart choice almost immediately, as he 60+ years as a pro-
fessional program,
explains. the Department has
amassed quite a
“Initially cataloging all of the legacy assets was a collection of histori-
major task. But Cumulus made it possible for Cal cal photos. Care-
Poly staff to write custom scripts to automatically fully scanned and
cataloged into
associate assets with metadata stored in sepa- Cumulus, even the
rate spreadsheet files. This ultimately saved us oldest images are
many hours of work, and it’s a good example of easy to find. Impor-
tant details, such as
how the flexibility of Cumulus serves as an excel- subject names and
lent teaching tool for the students.” other descriptors
are added where
possible—never to
Cumulus in Use at Cal Poly Today. be lost again!
Using Cumulus, classes can work with the
Department’s entire asset archive simultane-
ously. Students can find what they need, and they
can experiment with different asset management
approaches. All assets are stored on a central file
server, and Cumulus keeps track of the access
control, storage, metadata, searching, and
retrieval, so students can focus on the creative About the Graphic Communication
and educational tasks. Department.
Founded in 1946, Cal Poly’s Graphic Communica- For more information
“[Students] gain knowledge that will help them
throughout their careers, because managing
tion Department (www.grc.calpoly.edu) is one of on how Canto Cumulus
the largest and best known in the nation, offering
assets will be key to career success for our gradu- students a Bachelor of Science degree in Graphic can benefit your
ates.” Communication with concentrations in printing organization, contact your
and imaging management, Web and digital
Future Plans for Cumulus. media, design reproduction technology, packag-
local Canto partner, or
As a long time Cumulus user, Cal Poly has seen ing graphics, and an individual course of study. contact Canto directly.
several upgrades to Cumulus. Blum describes
each as “smooth” and adds: With over 33,000 square feet of laboratories, the
department houses some of the most modern United States
“With each upgrade, the Cumulus catalogs were instructional facilities in graphic arts education.
successfully migrated to work seamlessly with +1 (415) 495-6545
the upgraded software or hardware.” The department received national accreditation
by the Accreditation Council for Collegiate
And the Department’s commitment to Cumulus Graphic Communications. Europe
and DAM appears to be as strong as ever.
The department also houses the Graphic Com-
+49 (0) 30 390 485 0
“We look forward to continuing to add assets to munication Institute at Cal Poly, which conducts
our system in the future, as well as working with research, testing, product evaluations, in-plant Everywhere
new file formats. Canto is great about supporting training, consulting, seminars, workshops and info@canto.com
new formats within Cumulus as they appear.” conferences.

About Canto & Cumulus

Canto has been dedicated to helping customers fully utilize their digital assets since 1990. Canto Cumulus is a cross-platform solution that enables companies
to easily organize, find, share and track their ever-increasing numbers of digital files, in any format. Canto’s worldwide network of certified developers offers an
impressive assortment of plug-ins that enhance the Cumulus product line further.
Learn more: www.canto.com

Canto, the Canto logo and Cumulus are registered trademarks of Canto. Other company and product names might be trademarks of their respective owners.
C|CAS/CalPoly/V1.1/06.2009 Copyright ©2009 Canto GmbH. All rights reserved. www.canto.com Page 2 of 2