DAM Los Angeles 2026

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is a multi-disciplinary museum with nearly 3 million objects in its collection. It is a consolidated museum that stewards three major disciplines (Art, History, and Natural Science). As a reflection of this, the DAMS at OMCA is also a multi-subject, multi-disciplinary resource for the museum's operational needs. Throughout the system's implementation, our assumptions have changed as the user base has grown. We are adapting our DAM to serve these needs, and we view OMCA’s DAM as a living system that requires constant transformation as it matures.

Delivering our vision has required flexibility, challenged our assumptions, and forced us to rethink how we design the system as new processes or information needs are added.

Covering:

• What does the DAMS look like today?
• How a DAMS can be constantly evolving through the addition of more use cases.
• How we are adjusting the assumptions we initially had about content and the structure of the DAMS.
• What does content delivery look like when so many departments are involved?
  • Integrations between the DAMS and the Collections Management System (CMS) and the benefits gained.
  • Leveraging automations in workflows.
  • Portals for vendors, marketing selects, exhibition archive (institutional history) etc.
  • Managing permissions and structure.
• The importance of self-advocacy with your vendor (change requests, help, etc).

The challenges we have overcome and the ones we are still facing as we integrate more departments.