The simple steps libraries can take to bring digital collections into view

Building distinctive collections is one of libraries’ defining strengths. Shaped by the people who build and use them, these collections reflect the interests, histories and character of their communities. Their contents span scholarship, journals, books, photographs, manuscripts, archives and other materials with lasting value for research, teaching and institutional memory.

Digitization has enabled more of these collections to move beyond the physical library. Yet making an item available online does not ensure that people can find or understand it. Image-rich collections may contain little descriptive information, digital assets may sit apart from broader library workflows and accessible records may still lack the context that invites exploration.

As collections grow and become more complex, describing, managing and promoting them can stretch staff capacity. Artificial intelligence (AI) can reduce some of that manual effort, particularly in metadata enrichment, but can it be trusted?

Alma Specto is designed to bring automation into an AI-powered platform that keeps library expertise and oversight at the center. More than a repository or conventional digital asset management system, Alma Specto supports the digital collection lifecycle from ingest and metadata creation to discovery, exhibition and preservation. Built on Alma, it combines AI assistance with digital inventory management and public engagement tools in a unified environment.

That connected approach addresses four practical challenges that often keep digital collections from reaching their full value.

Four key steps to uncover hidden digital collections

Enrich metadata at scale

Digitized and born-digital materials can contain too little descriptive information to support effective discovery, particularly when they arrive at scale. Alma Specto uses Academic AI to identify people, places, organizations, landmarks and other entities in these materials and generate metadata suggestions that librarians can review, edit and approve before they become part of the record. Bulk ingest, grouping, tagging and approval workflows extend that assistance across growing collections.

By reducing repeated item-by-item work, catalogers can focus on verification, authority control and the contextual knowledge that requires library expertise.

Vienna University Library faced a problem shared by many academic libraries: faculty, researchers and alumni donate digital collections that arrive with minimal or inconsistent metadata. Alma Specto offered a way to enrich these materials at scale and integrate them with established workflows, making more of the collections available through library discovery.

Enriched metadata improves an individual record. Its value grows when the record can move through the rest of the collection lifecycle without leaving the library’s core environment.

Manage digital collections in a unified environment

Digital collections can become harder to manage when ingest, description, storage, discovery and exhibition take place in separate systems. Fragmented workflows can create duplicate effort, inconsistent metadata and a limited view of the collection as a whole.

Because Alma Specto is built on Alma, staff can manage digital collections alongside physical and electronic resources. They can ingest and organize digital objects, enrich metadata, publish approved records to discovery environments and reuse selected materials in digital exhibitions without moving records and files among unrelated tools. Optional preservation capabilities can support the long-term stewardship of digital assets.

A digitized manuscript, for example, can be linked to related print resources and described using the same authority control practices applied elsewhere in the library. For staff, the connected environment means fewer systems and workflows to maintain. For users, it reveals relationships among materials that might otherwise be missed.

Improve discovery and engagement

Richer metadata gives users more ways to reach relevant materials, especially in image-based and special collections where conventional keyword searching may fall short.

Alma Specto also supports connected exploration. Entity extraction and links among related materials can help users move from an individual object to associated people, places, organizations and themes.

Access can extend beyond the repository itself through search engines, online exhibitions and library discovery tools. These routes can help collections reach researchers and community members who would not begin their search in a digital repository.

Metadata-rich, crawlable pages can also help collections surface beyond the library’s own systems. Alma Specto cannot control how external search engines or AI-powered discovery tools rank or present content, but structured metadata and clear contextual information give these services more to interpret and increase the potential for wider discovery.

Findability matters when it leads to meaningful use in research, teaching and engagement with an institution’s distinctive resources. Reaching an item, however, is only part of that experience. Users may also need help understanding why it matters.

Create context through digital exhibitions

The Exhibition Builder in Alma Specto allows libraries to curate and publish online narratives that organize digital objects around themes, events, people or research topics. Interpretive text and related materials can place individual records within a larger story.

This approach is particularly useful for archives and special collections, where an object’s significance often depends on its relationship to other materials. An anniversary exhibition, for example, can combine a timeline with curated subcollections and related archival items, giving users several ways to explore the institution’s history.

Digital exhibitions can also introduce collections to audiences who may never search a repository directly, including faculty, students, alumni, donors and members of the public.

The same balance between reach and context also shapes how libraries approach AI. The technology can accelerate work, but its value depends on how it is embedded, reviewed and governed.

Responsible AI for digital collections

Academic AI generates metadata suggestions within established workflows, while librarians validate the output against institutional standards, authority files and collection context. The technology provides a scalable starting point without displacing professional judgment.

This hands-on process also helps staff build AI literacy by showing where automation saves time, where errors or bias may appear and when intervention is required. Clear expectations for data use, transparency, quality review and accountability remain essential, especially when AI becomes part of systems that manage scholarly or cultural heritage materials.

From preserved assets to used collections

Libraries build collections to preserve and share the interests, histories and knowledge of their communities. Yet incomplete description, disconnected systems and limited context can keep valuable materials from reaching the people who could use them.

Alma Specto connects digital collection management, AI-assisted enrichment, discovery, exhibitions and optional preservation within the Alma environment. By reducing repetitive work and connecting each stage of the lifecycle, it helps libraries move more collections from storage to discovery.

The value lies not only in making digital assets available, but in making them findable, understandable and useful for research, teaching and engagement.