CONTENTdm - Build, showcase, and preserve your digital collections

Access your collections anywhere, on any device

CONTENTdm's website is accessible from any device, and it includes an image viewer that supports hand gestures for zoom and pan. It also includes a flexible and mobile advanced search which gives you and your end-users more options to specify what you are seeking through sophisticated search queries. CONTENTdm offers audio and video players optimized for smooth play on cellular networks, and the PDF viewer is tuned for all devices to create a universal viewing experience.

Provide a great, consistent end-user experience

CONTENTdm has an end-user experience that is designed for phones, tablets, and workstations. It gives you features that are compatible with each device type while providing common usage patterns for all. The website creates a significantly faster, more usable view and includes accessibility features that support everyone.

Increase flexibility for end-users with IIIF

During the redesign of the CONTENTdm website, we made an early decision to support the IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework). Today, CONTENTdm supports the IIIF Image API and the IIIF Presentation API. We are making IIIF APIs foundational to CONTENTdm development because we want to provide uniform and rich access to the content in CONTENTdm sites. With IIIF, CONTENTdm collection owners can showcase their unique resources in new ways and give scholars and researchers better options for viewing and comparing visual resources within and across repositories.

Boost productivity with CONTENTdm’s high-volume workflow

You can add items to your collection singly or using batch processes and tools that make it easy to add and process thousands of digital items at once. Metadata templates allow you to quickly standardize your descriptive, technical, and administrative metadata. You can also import existing metadata into CONTENTdm. Built-in editing tools and controlled vocabularies aid in cataloging; you can import a controlled vocabulary or develop your own.

Embed streaming video, showcase your content from third-party services

The customization features in CONTENTdm let you embed content from external services like Vimeo or YouTube directly in your CONTENTdm item pages. This allows you to showcase your collections in a single destination and incorporate the streaming video resources that your users are looking for, right in your CONTENTdm collections.

Customize your webpages and shape CONTENTdm into the best showcase for your collections

CONTENTdm’s Website Configuration Tool lets you do simple things like adjust fonts, colors, and placement of built-in features, so you align with your institution’s branding. In addition, you can substitute style sheets to further tie-in to a common look and feel. You can go further by embedding image files and JavaScript to augment the look and function of existing pages, or insert additional pages that add additional information and structure to contextualize your collections.

Create the best first impression with the full custom homepage option

This feature works much like the fully custom page feature. You create and upload an HTML page, and the responsive website will load that as your homepage in place of the default page. The custom homepage supports YAML syntax, and HTTPS is the default protocol to encrypt log-ins and improve end-user privacy and security.

Integrate your collections with popular web tools

Using the CONTENTdm API, you can develop custom interfaces by integrating your collections with maps, Drupal, WordPress, VuFind, and even online shopping carts. The API allows you to present your unique collections in creative and innovative ways, such as touchscreens within your library.

Enhance your SEO visibility with CONTENTdm

CONTENTdm item viewing pages are optimized for image searching and mobile page ranking. Your CONTENTdm site supports mobile viewing, so it is instantly included in the regular harvesting of search engines. Also, each item viewing page contains a tagged, canonical URL, recommended by the major search engines. The tags give search engines a way to combine pages that may have multiple URLs and make sure the proper links are presented to end-users in search results. Images in item viewing pages are presented so they are consumable by search engines to incorporate them into image search facilities. CONTENTdm automatically creates a sitemap for your site and updates it as you build your collections. A sitemap gives search engines an uncluttered way to find the right information from your CONTENTdm site to present to end-users.

Increase your management IQ with built-in support for Google Analytics

The built-in usage summary and item type reports give you a high-level view of how frequently your collections are being used and what they’re made of. You can get a deeper insight into how your collections are being used with CONTENTdm’s integration with Google Analytics. Review user behavior by geographic location and maximize your collection usage by viewing a full picture of how patrons interact with your collections. See trends about how people are finding and using your collections and what types of collections are most popular with users.

Reach all users with CONTENTdm’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 AA compliance

We’ve performed usability testing and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance testing to ensure the best possible result for your users. While full compliance with WCAG will depend on the items and related materials you put in CONTENTdm, you’ll be excited to give your users with limited sight or limited hearing capabilities for navigating your digital collection. We continue to make WCAG a priority with each release.

Keep your digital collections secure

CONTENTdm includes long-term digital preservation tools that are fully integrated into your digital collection workflow. This preservation archive protects your data from physical and cyber disasters or corruption. You can rely on OCLC to secure your files in our ISO-certified data center with copies in multiple data centers around the world. OCLC has been storing and protecting library information as a nonprofit, member-driven library cooperative since 1967, so you can be confident that your files will remain pristine for the future.