The Digital Ark Launches New Website Portal for Cultural Heritage Institutions to Offer Access and Interactivity to Their Collections

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Nov. 4 , 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The Digital Ark (http://www.thedigitalark.com) launched a public Beta version of its new website portal which enables cultural heritage institutions to dynamically share their collections online with the public. Museums, libraries, archives and historical societies can publish their collections directly from their databases to the web, either as a stand-alone website or integrated with their existing website. With an intuitive design and new functionality, this portal provides the public with an easy-to-use website to empower users to interact with an institution's collections.

The Digital Ark's solution is built on a secure database to drive the online experience, including digital asset and collections management, web portal publishing, e-commerce sales, and automated workflow processes for metadata and digital image capture. The Digital Ark incorporated functionality to create an interactive experience which aggregates website usage statistics. "Based on usability studies and client feedback, we designed a streamlined interface which engages users, and drives traffic and online sales," said Edward Coderre, President of The Digital Ark.

The website portal features include: (1) Save Favorites to view later; (2) Share images via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail; (3) Add User Ratings on which users can search; (4) Request an Image if users can't find what they want; (5) Buy button connects users directly to that item for sale on The Digital Ark Store (http://www.digitalarkstore.com); (6) Comments allows users to identify unknown imagery; (7) Zoom to view larger image previews.

The Image Porthole (http://www.sshsa-db.org) is the website portal of The Steamship Historical Society of America's (SSHSA) collections. It contains over 48,000 images of steamships and ports of call from around the world dating from the 1850s to the present. In order to support SSHSA's mission to record, preserve and disseminate the history of engine-powered vessels, this new Image Porthole serves as an online resource for ship enthusiasts who desire to research and purchase ship images, share these images with others, and help identify unknown imagery.

The implementation of these new technologies wouldn't have been possible without The Digital Ark's recent hire - Benjamin Roberts (http://www.thedigitalark.com/html/broberts.html) as Technical Engineer. With a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Rhode Island, Roberts has the talent and expertise to harness the powers of database technologies for the benefit of The Digital Ark's clients. Roberts created an adaptive website following the latest open standards to interface with collections databases and dynamically present imagery and data in an intuitive format. A key component was enabling faster, more efficient loading and the displaying of hundreds of thousands of images in varying sizes. The goal is to create a fully integrated experience for the public that empowers users to quickly and easily interact with, share and purchase items from these collections.

For more information, visit http://www.TheDigitalArk.com

Visit SSHSA's website portal at http://www.sshsa-db.org

This press release was issued through eReleases(R).  For more information, visit eReleases Press Release Distribution at http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE The Digital Ark