I took on the digital asset management responsibility when I was a project manager for a mobile game publisher. I'd coordinate with game developers to receive creative assets so our team can create marketing material for game launch campaigns or ongoing effort in supporting titles. Organize raw game captured assets, run them through the market creative process and distribute assets to multiple stakeholders are my responsibilities.
Speculations - these were formed with my own experience and conversation with a Senior HR manager with experience across all functions in human resource including recruitment.
- Having a degree in general speaks to a person's ability to stay focus and on task until the job is done. Earning a degree through long duration of hard work through various sorts of obstacles.
- Holding a MLIS degree provides foundational understanding to information organization which will expedite this person's role in digital asset management. With additional training to a particular system the onboarding process is easier.
If my speculations are correct, then the hiring managers are putting too much fate in the MLIS degree and people who hold degrees. I often don't apply for jobs that have this as a must requirement for this role because, well, I don't have this degree and it is a signal to me that these hiring managers may not know much about digital asset management and what they actually need. From my research into the MLIS degree, while it has some aspects that relate to digital asset management, it should not to be a must requirement.
With that said, I have applied to jobs requiring, must and preferred, a degree and it is also advised by the Sr. HR Manager I conversed with to do so; apply for opportunities even when it insist applicants to have degrees or skills they may not have. You can never be sure who is reviewing the application and resume; your experience can still speak volume when being considered for the role. I've gotten job offers where I did not have all of the things listed in the job description.
Here are some job descriptions I've come across with various level of requirement and preferences.
MLIS degree
MLIS stands for Master of Library Information System which is different than MIS, the Management Information Systems most business majors may be familiar with. Looking at the courses for the MLIS degree, it seems to be heavily leaning on the theory of what it is (different types) and how they can / should be organized (closer to computer science and programming).
Many of these courses will have little to no use to a digital asset manager or librarian role in the real world all except maybe the course that "covers the design, querying, and evaluation of information systems, from web hierarchies to controlled vocabularies" which will let them know they are out of their depth if they were hired and they should have taken a few more courses in coding than just a course that "covers" this subject.
SJSU School of Information listed out many possible opportunities for this degree. Some of the employment opportunities listed are:
- Catalog and Metadata Librarians
- Electronic Resource Librarians
- Data Management Coordinators
- Data Curation Librarians
- Knowledge Management Analysts
- Schema Architects
- Taxonomists
- Technical Services Directors
- User Experience Architects
- Information Architects
- Vocabulary/Information Architecture Directors
- Digital Content Managers
- Search Analysts
- Discovery Platform Coordinators
- Linked Data Strategists
- Content Strategists
The two opportunities, Catalog and Metadata Librarian and Taxonomist, are come the closest to the responsibilities of digital asset managers and librarians. I wrote this long post just to say that having a "must" requirement of a MLIS degree for digital asset management role is unnecessary. 😃
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