Robb Lazarus comes to multimedia from a background in psychology, technology and business. At Digital Collections International, (DCI) he puts all three disciplines to good use. Lazarus is DCI’s project manager in charge of CD-ROM title production and creating imagebases for commercial and institutional purposes.

DCI was founded in 1989 by Dr. Stuart Marson. Like many high tech companies, DCI is not easily defined. Both a tool maker and content publisher, they create image management software such as ImageAXS. They have staked out the high end of CD-ROM publishing, and have focused on producing titles with scholarly and artistic merit which appeal to a sophisticated audience. Some of their titles to date include: “Great Paintings of the Frick Collection,” “Masterworks of Japanese Painting,” “Ancient Egyptian Art from the Brooklyn Museum,” “1000 Years of Russian Art,” and their immensely popular CD-ROM featuring the work of the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Lazarus:

Be prepared to spend a lot of time and be prepared to experiment. Allot plenty of time to trying different ways of doing things and looking at the results. If you can remove some of the time pressures, you can turn something that might otherwise be enormously frustrating into something that is more fun and experimental. If there is a constant time pressure, dead ends and blind alleys will become constant sources of stress. Also, always start out with the best equipment possible. It won’t be the best in six months, but start out with it anyway.