CASE STUDY: ETH Zürich

Using Google as a portal to Canto Cumulus, promoting and publishing images to the world.

Challenge
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) is one of the world’s leading
universities. As ushers of many of the technological evolutions of the past century
and a half, it’s no surprise ETH-Bibliothek (the university’s library) has
accumulated a digital asset archive so valuable that even Google took notice.
Product Edition:
It’s also not surprising an organization like this would take such care in choosing a Cumulus Enterprise
digital asset management (DAM) system to manage its archive—and make it Plug-ins and Add-ons Used:
easily accessible via the world’s favorite search engine. Internet Client Pro (via customized user
interface)
Solution
Assets Managed by Cumulus:
Canto Cumulus wasn’t the first system ETH-Bibliothek considered—it was the Images: 300,000+ (> 3 TB of files)
last. Cumulus offered the balance of power and control ETH-Bibliothek needed to Catalogs: 18
securely publish information online and handle virtually unlimited Internet use. To Cumulus In Action at ETH:
simplify account management, Cumulus could integrate with the university’s http://www.ethbib.ethz.ch
LDAP system—another big plus. But best of all, Cumulus was an open system the http://www.e-pics.ethz.ch
library could integrate with the world’s premiere marketing tool—Google—to lead
Supported by Canto Partner:
Internet users right to the university’s virtual front door.
Interaktion (http://www.interaktion.ch)
Results and Benefits Partner Products and Services:
• Easy Web access to university archives that’s controllable, secure—and profitable. • Training/support
• Google/Cumulus interface has increased Web traffic almost 2,000% in a year. • Custom development

• University-wide central portal to archives encourages use, and benefits researchers.

Why Cumulus:
Archiving the archive Quickly outgrowing their first digital asset manage- • Flexible and powerful enough
ETH-Bibliothek started digitizing its photo archive ment (DAM) system, Mumenthaler knew ETH to serve entire university
during the late 1990s, and for good reason, explains needed something more powerful to keep pace with
Dr. Rudolf Mumenthaler, Head of Innovation and increasing demand from other departments. • Easily integrated into current
Marketing for ETH-Bibliothek. and future university systems
“Each department needed their own taxonomies and
“Images had become increasingly important for metadata. Plus, they wanted control over who saw • Customizable through
teaching, documentation and research. We had to their images, for digital rights management reasons.” Cumulus API
make our archive accessible.” • LDAP integration meant no
additional user management
required
• Cross-platform
• Supports revenue collection
for fee-based commerical use
of assets
• Evolves to meet growing
demands
• Strong support from Canto
and Canto Partner

(Left) Guests and registered users have access levels defined for them, which helps ensure asset security. (Right) Taking advan-
tage of the powerful and unique Cumulus categories feature, it’s easy for anyone to browse and find assets.

Canto, the Canto logo and Cumulus are registered trademarks of Canto. Other company and product names might be trademarks of their respective owners.
GEN/mkCS-ETH/2010.03 Copyright ©2010 Canto GmbH. All rights reserved. www.canto.com Page 1 of 2
CASE STUDY: ETH Zürich

Google meets Cumulus

In cooperation with Google, ETH built a Google/
Cumulus interface to further the system’s reach.
Google image search provides links directly into
Cumulus where users can learn more about an
ETH image, preview it with zoom and pan, and
download it too. The integration bolstered ETH’s
Cumulus Web traffic by a staggering 2,000% in
12 months.

Plans for tomorrow

Starting with a standard Google image search, the user is taken first to an intermediary metadata page, then to a live
page served by the ETH Cumulus system from which the asset can be previewed and downloaded.
The DAM system search
Mumenthaler carefully considered no fewer than
six DAM systems before deciding on Cumulus.
“Among our main requirements were the ability to
provide catalogs to each department, offer cross-
platform support, and the system had to be Web
accessible with no user software required.”
Cumulus easily met Mumenthaler’s initial
requirements, but the benefits went even deeper.
“Cumulus offered image processing and conver-
sion options that other systems didn’t. It’s very
useful, for example, that lecturers can find images
and download them as PowerPoint slides.”
But it was distribution control that topped the
requirements lists of the university departments.
“Success of the project depended on access and
distribution control, and Cumulus had the best
solution for this.”
Mumenthaler admits it was difficult for some
departments to see the benefits of DAM at first,
but that changed once Cumulus was launched.
Additional departments will get their own cata-
logs, and to boost revenues from commerical
asset use, a PayPal link is planned.
For Dr. Mumenthaler and ETH, Cumulus was
money well spent.
“Without Cumulus, I don’t know how all these
services could be offered. There might be an
“Our initial plan was that 10 catalogs would justify alternate solution, but I can’t think of one.”
the system. Today we have 18.”
Making it personal
The flexible Cumulus API enabled ETH to cus- For more information
tomize the program to suit its needs.
on how Canto Cumulus
“We built our own Web access software so we
could offer our own user interface.”
can benefit your
organization, contact your
Cumulus interfaces were also built for the univer-
sity’s LDAP system, storage area network (SAN), local Canto partner, or
Web CMS Silva, and the library’s “Knowledge contact Canto directly.
Portal,” which will soon provide a Google inter-
face to library images.
Canto partner, Interaktion, made the integrations In the U.S.
even easier for ETH, says Mumenthaler. +1 (415) 495-6545
“We have good experiences with Interaktion—
they know Cumulus very well.” In the E.U.
Canto also offered ETH some help, when needed. +49 (0) 30 390 485 0
“We needed to mirror metadata to an SQL sys-
tem. Cumulus didn’t support this at the time, but
Everywhere
Canto made that happen by the next release.” info@canto.com

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

About Interaktion
Interaktion GmbH is one of the top agencies for digital integration within Switzerland. Their services include professional consulting for DAM project planning,
implementation, deployment of DAM solutions, as well as individual customization, training and support. With more than 10 years experience, and many sat-
isfied customers, Interaktion is dedicated to ongoing success.
Learn more: www.interaktion.ch

Canto, the Canto logo and Cumulus are registered trademarks of Canto. Other company and product names might be trademarks of their respective owners.
GEN/mkCS-ETH/2010.03 Copyright ©2010 Canto GmbH. All rights reserved. www.canto.com Page 2 of 2