a creative, offbeat database servicer & agency bridging information systems and workflows

Work with Us
Design made of white dots on a black background, depicting a D.O.E. logo with a stylized atom with three circular paths, a star shape, and the letters 'D', 'O', 'E'.

What We Offer

  • We specialize in digital asset management (DAM), metadata design, system migration, and asset cataloging for any team seeking ethical, human-centered approaches to information stewardship.

    DAM skills range from Adobe Experience Assets, AM Quartex, Bynder; Canto (partner); and Archival platforms such as ArchiveSpace, Preservica, and ResourceSpace.

  • Your assets tell a story: a poem, a folktale, a library, a wild & out there business venture. They are more than just files, they’re your history. It is important they get treated as such.

    Nua Index Agency is a digital asset management and organization service in Chicago. We offer creative and systematic strategies to optimize, scale, and elevate your digital libraries and archive.

    We have experience in archival processing, re-housing, and item-level foldering - as well as digital-born collections across personal and descriptive material for artists, retail, non-profit, and enterprise.

  • Nua Index Agency refers to the International Council on Archives, “folk-data” principles, and critical cataloging within Dublin Core/XML schemas when building our workflows. We know there are many metadata standards across digital material, so we would love to collaborate with you to find the right schema for you.

    We offer:

    • Cataloging

    • Material Processing

    • Digitization

    • Metadata schemas

    • Taxonomy

    • Governance: data migration documentation

    • Workflows and custom knowledge bases

    Don’t see a service you need? Get in touch.

  • Interested in joining the Nua Index Working Group for Folk Data? Contact us via email nua index at proton dot me to discuss your interest.

Get Started
  • Cluster of white circles arranged in a symmetrical pattern, forming a star-like shape.

    Over 60+ Copies Sold

    Folk Data, our zine on ethical metadata across DAM

  • Cluster of white circles and star shapes arranged in a pattern on a black background.

    4+ Years

    in DAM/GLAM

  • Loading icon with white dots in a circle on a black background

    Community-Oriented

    for a more crtical, and reparative way of managing digital material

  • Black background with white circles forming a symmetrical star-shaped pattern.

    3x Certified

    in DAM tools across Adobe, Bynder, and more.

Selected Case Studies

Illinois Humanities

Digitize and archive a 50-year organization, migrating assets to a scalable DAM and an open-source platform across a 2026-2027 contract. Funded with Bloomberg Philanthropies, this project is ongoing.

View Project

Folk Data

Folk Data is a praxis and cataloging framework emphasizing critical and folkloric ways of interacting with metadata schemas. Folk Data Edition 1 is now sold out.

View Project

About the Founder

Jessie McCarty created the portfolio Nua Index Agency (Irish for “new” or “fresh”) after years of working as a digital asset manager and cataloger. When working with clients, they found a gap between creative teams and how to best organize their media.

Since 2022, Jessie’s work under Nua Index taken on projects across archives and digital collections for small businesses by utilizing hands-on cataloging experience with strategic systems.

About me!

I am an MLIS in Information Management candidate, a 2025 Henry Stewart DAM Digital Future Leader, as well as a recipient of the TransTech Linux Foundation IT Associates Scholarship! I love designing information workflows that bridge your operational and public-facing needs.

I am a member of the International Council on Archives, the Working Group on Sex-Affective and Gender Diversity Archives & Archivists (SAGDAA-WG), and a 2026 member of the MARAC Mentoring Program's Peer Support Group.

My methods in folk-metadata for Nua Index Agency have been featured with the IIIF, The Digital Repository of Ireland, and the International Council on Archives (ICA) Newsletter. My interests focus on poetics, ethical metadata, Indo-European (Celtic) cultural heritage, and categorization across platforms.

When I’m not cataloging, I’m writing poems, loving my friends, going for a run in my neighborhood, or learning Irish.

A young woman with short brown hair and teal glasses, wearing a black jacket, sitting with her arms crossed on a table against a beige background.
A young woman with short brown hair and teal glasses, wearing a black jacket, sitting with her arms crossed on a table against a beige background.

Get in Touch!

Schedule a free 1:1 introductory session with me to discuss your cataloging and DAM/GLAM needs/concerns.

Talk with me!
Logo for NOO-AH Index Agency with stylized dotted text and black background.

Press, Talks, Publication

  • Our services were featured in the Summer 2026 Issue #03 ("Sporty Spice") in the LGBTQ publication, Autostraddle. Read it here.

  • It was a pleasure to be the July 2026 guest speaker for the Digital Respository of Ireland’s Morning Coffee Hour. Our presentation on “Folk Data” discussed ethical file-naming conventions across business DAMs. You can read the presentation here.

  • Nua Index Agency’s founder Jessie McCarty had an article published in the July 2026 issue of the New Professionals Newsletter at the International Council on Archives. part of a larger essay series, Nua Index Agency emphasized the ethos behind “folk data” and all its uses within metadata work. Read it here.

  • “Folk Data” as a tool for preservation in classification systems was featured in the Digital Biodiversity Conference in May 2026, under the panel: E”thical Metadata in Community-Centered Digital Collections.” You can watch the presentation here.

    Abstract:

    Your organization's metadata is yours to organize, download, and share. Unethical metadata has consequences, and the effect of large amount of data being downloaded, shared, tagged, and dispersed creates an impact on the environment and the collections we work with.

  • IIIF is a way to standardize the delivery of images and audio/visual files from servers to different environments on the Web where they can then be viewed and interacted with in many ways. I was featured in the 2026 Open Meeting Lightning Talk series. You can view my lightning talk here.

    Lightning Talk, Session 3. Abstract:

    Folk Data! Tools for Describing Data & Memory for Human-Centered Systems, Jessie McCarty
    This talk explores metadata as a folklore practice: an act of cultural weaving that connects data, people, and memory. Using IIIF and human-centered description techniques, participants will examine ways to categorize and label assets in digital interfaces beyond efficiency or retrieval.