Behind the Scenes with Libris: The Vision and Team Guiding Our Product

In our new video series, we’re taking you behind the scenes with Libris by PhotoShelter. Check out our behind the scenes post with Farah Visslailli, head of client services. We hope you enjoy getting to know our team!

What’s a good recipe for success? For the Libris product, it’s a strong vision and a passionate, committed team.

And who better to help our team craft the vision for Libris than someone who’s familiar with the needs of both photographers and brands? Meet Peter Krogh, the product architect for Libris. Peter is a professional photographer who has worked with corporations around the world. As a digital asset management expert, he also helps brands build and streamline their image libraries.

At PhotoShelter, we are bringing those two worlds together and building an ecosystem that helps both photographers and brands get more from their photos and videos. We asked Peter to share a bit about our team’s vision for Libris and why he’s passionate about being a part of the PhotoShelter team.

10 Things You Might Not Know About the Libris Product

1. The Libris platform is a global, at-scale solution built on the PhotoShelter owned-and-operated network, managing almost 300 million photo and video files. Since we don’t have to rely on a 3rd party infrastructure, we offer superior network performance in a cost-effective way.
2. Libris is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. Our clients say it saves them time and they enjoy using it, but above all it empowers them to maximize their asset library. It’s why brands ranging from Catholic University to the Arizona Cardinals to Visit Greenland use Libris.
3. With 11 years of experience in cloud-based visual asset management, our product and development teams really know images. They’ve poured a ton of work into the algorithm for resizing. They honor color management. They know image metadata, usage rights and permissions. They understand the whole ecosystem – including the legal ecosystem. In this increasingly visual world, they have the passion and knowledge it takes to build a product that solves problems and makes your life easier.
4. Since they’ve seen hundreds of millions of images come through the system, our product and development teams know how to deal with any curve balls that might come their way. They’ve had experience with rare edge cases that non-image specialists might not see, and they’re ready for anything.
5. The PhotoShelter and Libris product teams work closely with each other as we build on and improve the two products. It’s critical for the Libris team to understand the needs of the photographers that our organizations work with, and vice versa.
6. The product team is always looking for ways to optimize Libris. They interview clients and prospective clients about their asset management workflows (let us know if you want to participate!), perform usability testing to assess the design of a feature in progress, and stay up-to-date on new technologies, industry trends and best practices.
7. Clients give Libris a 9.7 out of 10 on ‘Product Direction’ on the user review site G2Crowd.
8. Libris is the only compliant solution of its scale that offers hands-off fulfillment layered on top of your asset library. That’s one of the reasons why many universities and pro sports teams use Libris for e-commerce.
9. PhotoShelter members can add content to a Libris account from within a PhotoShelter account and Libris users can seamlessly move assets between Libris accounts. It’s all part of building an ecosystem where photographers can easily deliver photos to their clients, and brands can easily get the content they need.
10. Between PhotoShelter and Libris, we release new features, improvements, and updates to our two products on a just-about-weekly basis. Recently, the Libris product and development teams have released big features like advanced video hosting and customizable web portal features. As Libris product manager Karin Magary says, “We’re cookin’ up a storm around here!”

…And when Karin says “cookin’ up a storm,” she is talking about Libris features, not all the amazing baked goods she and other PhotoShelter staff members make because they are huge fans of The Great British Bake Off.

Delicious baked goods from The Great PhotoShelter Bake Off. Photo by Ruby Ahn, product manager for PhotoShelter.