Case City of Sint-Niklaas

Challenge

The image bank had to be a tool with strong images that the right person can always access. After all, this is something Sint-Niklaas wants to stand for as a city. To avoid colleagues having to mail back and forth between different departments to get the right material, they wanted to clean up their existing image database. To do this, they called in the help of Zeticon.

Solution

Because things like GDPR were also not quite on point yet - after all, there was no such thing before - we set up a workshop with them to determine exactly what was needed. So that turned out to be correct compliance with GDPR, but also adjusting rights and roles, metadata, and a separation from the City Archive.

Namely, on the one hand, there is the communications department that acts as the person responsible for all promotional images (e.g. the most beautiful place in town). By designating them as ultimately responsible, an evaluation layer has been created, also for other services such as the youth service and the library. The communication service ensures that the system does not get polluted by checking what is uploaded and checking that correct metadata is assigned to the right images.

On the other hand, there is also the City Archive, which collects older images, such as old prayer cards, photos of finds from a hundred years ago and the like. That is a different type of material being uploaded; hence the separation. The City Archive is not part of the communication service and manages its own rights and roles to guard the city's rich history as best it can on the platform.

The metadata workshop was used to determine which tags are given to images to find them in the image database. For instance, the city felt it was important to be able to filter by keywords. Images that fall under those keywords, but should not be shown to everyone (for GDPR reasons, for example), can be shielded by attaching certain permissions to them. They are indeed still safe on the image bank, but only entitled people can see them.

Incidentally, the city itself has taken the initiative to create a manual (derived from ours) for all internal staff regarding the platform. This contains more explanations about rights and roles, functionalities, the metadata fields chosen, GDPR rules and much more. Now, when new employees join the city, they immediately know what agreements apply and are familiar with how the system works in no time. We can only applaud this and are happy to pass on the tip.

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Result

Employees no longer suffer from an indistinct file overload and do not have to endlessly e-mail each other to request certain images. When they, for example, search for certain images in the image bank for a theme book, they can now find them quickly with the help of the on-point metadata. In addition, all assets are now GDPR-proof and everything is secure and centralised on the platform, managed by the communication service. The interface looks a lot more modern and the filters work more intuitively, allowing everyone to work smoothly with the tool.

With this refresh and configuration, the system is better organised and tailored to their own tastes and needs. A result they can be proud of at Sint-Niklaas!

We at Zeticon are also very proud to have Sint-Niklaas as one of our loyal customers. After all, a sustainable long-term cooperation is one of our priorities!