Nationalmuseum is a government authority and Sweden’s premiere museum of art and design. Home to exclusive art collections from the Renaissance up until the present day, their primary mission is to preserve cultural heritage and promote the interest and knowledge of art.
With collections ranging from Renaissance paintings and sculptures to modern-day applied arts and design, their central mandate is to research, preserve, make accessible, and help build knowledge.
Rikard Nordstrom is Nationalmuseum’s Picture Officer of Archives & Library, and it’s his job to preserve and promote their wide array of collections in the digital space. We caught up with Rikard to talk about how Bynder has helped to modernize and future-proof their content operations.
The critical need for Nationalmuseum
In the fast-paced age of digital, there was a growing demand to bring the wealth of Nationalmuseum’s archives to life online, and with exhibitions changing thick and fast, images needed to be readily available for both staff and partners in an instant.
There was a growing need for a faster way to find images in the right format to meet the demands of media and press agencies. Using our museum’s Image Services Unit, high-res assets were often bottlenecked as a result of being stored in folders and on servers that weren’t accessible for everyone.
As is common with non-profit organizations, requests for archival materials were coming from all directions, and their day-to-day operations demanded an easier way for staff to access what they needed, and in the correct format for the various different outlets such as social media, print, and exhibitions.
What needed fixing
By using an external server to manage their content, too much time was wasted having to back up images, apply metadata consistently, and keep it organized. So where did the problems lie?
Chaotic organization: There were ‘islands’ of image folders across their network lacking structure, so staff would often resort to guesswork when looking for files. The result? slow searching, miscommunication, and duplicate content.
Inconsistent metadata: Applying image metadata had changed over the years which led to confusion among staff—many of them not even having access to important files.
Inefficient workflow: Stakeholders needed images in the right format quickly, but the lack of an internal editing tool led to slow turnarounds.
Helping Nationalmuseum achieve their three-pillared mandate
We have more than 194,000 assets in Bynder that are accessible to our staff by logging in to the portal—no VPN or server folders needed.
As a government authority, at the heart of Nationalmuseum’s mission is placing the cultural wealth stored in their archives in the context of contemporary society, and engaging with today’s public—both online and offline. Their central mandate focuses on preserving cultural heritage, making it accessible, and promoting a wider interest and knowledge of art.
“To preserve”: No more forgotten folders and misplaced artwork; having all their assets in one place and in the cloud means Nationalmuseum have the peace of mind that nothing gets lost, everything is up-to-date, and no back-ups are needed.
This has led to new discoveries, while enriching present and future projects at the museum.
“To make accessible”: Having one centralized source for all assets means thousands of images which had never been available to staff before are now available in an instant, and in the format/size they need.
Always having the images we need at our fingertips in a user-friendly portal has made it so much easier to connect and share our artworks with both partners and the public.
“To conduct research and help build knowledge”: Building knowledge for Nationalmuseum is all about delivering an engaging experience to the public with the artwork exhibited. Uncovering the wealth of assets they had and providing autonomy for staff to easily access and distribute their collections online provides a richer learning experience for the public.
We now have consistent, accurate, and readily available images and assets thanks to Bynder. This has helped us to really deliver on our core mission to preserve cultural heritage and promote the interest and knowledge of art.
