ASA Ltd
We are a visual content consultancy that works with clients from across the heritage, trade and commercial sectors of the image industry to help them manage their collections and enable their content to be visible, profitable, and easily accessible to diverse markets and audiences.
We help our clients achieve their goals, whether in the form of making internal access to archives more efficient, or enabling and enhancing licensing of collections to academia, education, internal, corporate, broadcasters, publishers, advertising, and the general public. Our clients include Oxford University, Historic England, ArtUK, Museum of English Rural Life, Reading University, National Farmers’ Union, and Osprey Publishing Group.
As experienced networkers with far-reaching connections in the industry, we work with image libraries in both the commercial and heritage sectors to market their collections, enlarge their client-bases, broaden their distribution networks through global partnerships and alliances, and boost their brand awareness. We also provide sponsorship services using our wide-ranging connections world-wide, and are currently the Sponsorship Manager of the American Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA).
As experienced practitioners of copyright, we run Training sessions in the UK with organisations such as Collections Trust and ACE, and abroad as far afield as Beijing; and we research projects for books, magazines and films.
In the past three years ASA has been building the Gateway to Heritage – an innovative platform with the aim of allowing smaller UK museums and archives to license their visual content in the commercial marketplace. Participating organisations include Beaford Archive, Black Cultural Archives, Historic England, Horniman Museum, MERL, Reading University, and the RAF Museum.
Andrea Stern
Andrea has worked with images throughout her career. Starting out as a picture researcher at George Rainbird Ltd., the publishers that created the ‘coffee table book’, she later went on to found the image agency ASAP, Israel, developing the distribution of local photographers to global markets and representing international image companies locally. Her close involvement with the heritage sector began in 2002 with her role as Head of Images and Rights at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which she transitioned from an editorial, publishing-based audience to V&A Images capable of pro-actively licensing to the commercial sector, locally, and globally.
Andrea founded ASA Ltd, visual content consultancy, in 2011, with an awareness of the differences between heritage and stock collections and their approach to commercialisation. She recognises the potential for museum image collections in the global marketplace, and also the barriers that often prevent them from moving deeper into the digital arena.
Andrea speaks regularly and moderates at trade conferences including ACE, CEPIC and DMLA, talking on issues related to heritage, copyright and the future of the image industry.
