DAM Glossary

Digital Asset Management (DAM): It is called an asset because it has value. It cost money to create – your time or the cost of purchasing it from a designer, writer or photographer. It can be sold by the owner, as in a stock library or by a photographer or it may be used (and reused) by you or your company. It is the management of these assets using software and workflow that adds further value.

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Overview: You are dealing with digital files, say an image. In its simplest form, there are two scenarios. Think of the file as a sheet of paper. By having the metadata embedded into the file you make that asset portable – send it to a newspaper and their system can read your data. Sure, you can send the image and a text file with the caption but when they become separated they are worthless. Upgrade your DAM system in five or ten years, no need to sort or re-enter data. If one image is corrupted the rest are OK, if the database becomes corrupted … a bigger problem.

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Bandwidth: The peak capacity of your ‘connection’ to transfer your files - graphics consumes more bandwidth than text does. If your office has a maximum bandwidth of say 2Mbs (Megabits per second) and you host your own DAM server you will be in trouble if lots of people log in and download images at the same time or worse – start trying to view videos. Data Centres have connections of 1000 Mbs or greater, which is why hosted DAM solutions can make sense.

Brand Asset Management (BAM): Brands are among a company’s most valuable assets and BAM software pulls together more than simply displaying the brand image. It will include everything connected with that brand from a usage approval requests, approved suppliers, designers, media placement, rights by country, reports, trademarks etc.

Broadcast Asset Management (BAM): Video and audio

Captioning: Adding data to a file can be covered by simply calling it captioning.

Client Application: Software that is a client application simply means it runs on your desktop / laptop as opposed to a server. Some DAM systems require the user to buy and install a ‘client application’ to actually view the library or add captions (metadata). So it could become both expensive and restrictive. Nowadays DAM viewing and adding metadata should be web accessible.

Controlled Vocabulary: The management of how you 'caption' a file - adding metadata - such as Keywords, Categories, etc. to ensure both relevance and consistency, particularly when you need to make sure different people all use the same word during captioning.

DAM Software: Essentially there are two types of DAM software, the cataloguing system and the browser system. In the early days there were really big differences, nowadays there is very little between them, the catalogue system creates a database, the budget browser system can simply browse, the superior systems create an index.

Data Migration: Don’t try this at home. This usually refers to matching up the database records of your old DAM system to your new DAM database system. A goldmine for the new software provider. TDAL would hope you were migrating the database records as metadata to the individual files. TDAL have a dozen programs that cater for most eventualities, migrating records in a trice.

Digital Rights Management (DRM): Put simply, have you the right to use this digital file? The use can be download, copy, reproduce, purchase, etc. The management of protecting the rights in a DAM system is complex, not least in having a secure system with access control and auditing together with other specialist options. The DRM - the protection of copyright - particularly in the music, film and electronic games sector is big business.

Dublin Core: The international XML standard of the 15 key sets of fields for captioning digital files. The new IPTC. Dublin Core is what is known as a namespace and the one most DAM systems use. [Named after a meeting in Dublin, Ohio, USA]

Embedded Metadata: See the overview

EXIF: Simply more metadata but provided automatically by your camera and embedded into the image. Date, time, camera used & serial number, lens setting, flash used, which way up was the camera … and on and on. Tons of information, some cameras even record where they were in the world and which direction they were pointing. However, embedded EXIF information is very useful and often the starting point in sorting out images for a library. [Exchangeable Image File]

Flash Video (FLV): This is normally the type of video that is used to play the preview – let you quickly see the video – on a DAM site before you download in the format(s) offered. The software you need on your computer is free and 95% of users will have it installed already anyway. What is required is a DAM system that simply converts the uploaded video file to FLV.

IPTC: Thank goodness for IPTC, simply the first 'international standard' for the way - and where - metadata is written to digital files. It was adopted worldwide. This is how you can write metadata in say, a MediaFiler DAM system and it can be sent and read in a VYRE DAM system. While a new standard (XMP) has been ‘invented’ to cater for the digital explosion, the DAM system you buy must read and write IPTC so you can continue to communicate with older DAM systems. [International Press Telecommunications Council]

Keyword: A search word that links asset together. They may be pictures of London, Edinburgh and Cardiff but a keyword could be night. Ideally give every asset as many keywords as possible. A project name or reference number can be a keyword too.

Licences: DAM systems are not cheap and once up and running are the life blood of many organisations. Check how much a second licence will cost you to allow you to test and plan new configurations and integration prior to deployment.

Marketing Resource Management (MRM): Included in this glossary because it is presently one of the fastest growing ‘solution’ sectors. This term is generally used by marketing automation (software) providers. MRM typically encompasses and combines a group of software solutions supporting marketing operations activities such as product information management, marketing operations management, event and campaign management and of course … Digital Asset Management.

Media Asset Management (MAM): All media, such as Video, Audio, Images, etc.

Metadata: Also look at the overview at the top. It’s simply digital captioning. The who, what, where, when, why and how. Answer the questions that everyone may ask. Because it’s digital and some information such as EXIF data is provided automatically you can cram in as much information as you like. Why? So you can search and find this one file in a 1001 ways, now and in the future. When you ‘TAG’ your social network pictures, you are simply adding metadata to that image. It’s that easy.

Mobile: The never ending explosion of mobile phones and devices that access the internet now requires that any DAM system can deliver in a format for mobile web browsers. We're told 2010 will see more calls from mobiles than landlines in the UK !

Ontology: Captioning in a way that links, say images or items together but not as in the structured manner of taxonomy. In its simplest form; linking by concept, idea, event etc.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS): Web syndication is a popular method of making content available to other websites simultaneously. Often called an RSS feed. Will your DAM system provide an RSS feed, if so you can link into other DAM systems, provide a RSS feed to a social network site or even into a window (or screen saver) on your computer so you can monitor what is being uploaded / downloaded to your library in real time.

Repurpose: A useful feature of a DAM system, the ability to change the use of an asset, either on upload, within a workflow or prior to download, automatically or on demand.

Image size is a prime example. If on upload it is far too big, it is automatically downsized to say, A4. Then a user wants to download it for a PowerPoint, so just for that user, it is further reduced to exactly PowerPoint size. Saves the user having to spend time resizing and speeds up the download time.

Search: Finding the file fast is the whole reason for having a DAM system. Depending on your target users and size of library you will need to check out the search capabilities. Speed is essential but has it an auto fill search box, predictive search, fuzzy search, open search, advanced search facilities, etc.,

Security: While there are lots of DAM systems in the market place, one of the the reasons some are pricier than others is the security. Lots of horror stories of entire collections being downloaded because the owner thought that cheap library software was a great deal.

Sidecar files: Not every single type of file invented can have embedded metadata. So the metadata is put in a separate file, a ‘sidecar’ file. If you send off the main file it grabs the sidecar by the hand and drags it along with it. The New Generation of DAM systems handle this in their stride.

Stemming: Part of the search facility of a DAM system, the ability to take a search word, identify its stem (root) and return answers for that stem word. For example: search ‘fishing’ and the results are fishey, fished, fisher etc. and the root its self ‘fish’. Just another way to make searching a DAM system easy.

Streaming Video: Is your DAM system able to stream video. As a user, you want to click on a video and watch it straight away, nice and smooth as if it was television. How often do you click on a video and it says “Buffering” and only when it has fully downloaded does it start to play. If you are delivering video you would want a DAM server that delivers streaming video. The recipient must have a good connection too. Some DAM systems allow for a separate 'streaming' server. That is, you search and find your video in the DAM library but as soon as you click play, you are transferred to another server and because video consumes bandwidth, this ensures there is no diminished access to your 'main' library.

Systems Integration: The ability of different software (and by different suppliers) to link together and work together. Never an easy task in the computing world. For example, you want to link in some smart color management for images as soon as they are uploaded and some sort of distribution manager to handle file delivery or transmission. A payment system and e-commerce are common requests for integration.

The ’hub’ is going to be the DAM software, to link into you need some access point or code set to an international standard. Some DAM suppliers never allow access unless it is by another of their products or charge a small fortune offering a bespoke solution when all you wanted was to simply add a perfectly good bit of ‘someone else’s’ software to your DAM system. Make sure your DAM supplier is vendor independent.

Tag, Tagging: The social networking name for adding what DAM professionals call metadata.

Taxonomy: Organizing the way items are classified and the order in which they are classified. Something that you sort out before you start captioning for your DAM system. Scientific libraries in particular will be able to access international Taxonomy standards but all libraries need to decide how to handle captioning. See how it works in this simple example, say an image of London:


Well planned taxonomy can save hours for the caption writer, click London and the previous 5 keywords are automatically added.

Thesaurus: Just because a DAM system says they have a Thesaurus don't think it’s pre-packed with all the synonyms you find in the books. Most likely it means it works like a Thesaurus but you have to fill in the words to meet your particular subject range yourself.

Usage Approval: Another way of asking permission to use the file. Police, Local Councils and even Universities are classic users requiring usage approval built into their DAM software. For example, the keyword 'child' could trigger a usage approval system, anyone wishing to use an image clicks the download link. If that particular image needs approval they fill in a form and an email is sent to the person who can approve use and activate the download. There are other ways of achieving the same outcome.

Video Asset Management (VAM): What it says.

Watermarking: The easiest form of protecting or identifying ownership of an asset being viewed (so possible to copy) on the web. DAM systems simply electronically add a visual watermark to the image that is displayed. No damage is done to the original.

There is also digital watermarking. From a code number or identifier within the metadata to more complex methods within the image. Commercial companies provide specialist software, which you would use on the file prior to upload or build into your workflow.

Workflow: Workflow is KING. The way a file travels to, through and from a DAM system. Workflow reads and acts upon metadata. Workflow can add captions, convert colours and handle distribution. It saves time and errors.

This is probably the most important aspect of DAM, often least understood by the client. It should be top of your agenda. The perfect workflow makes the system easy to use, can save seconds, which over a week or year becomes hours or days, to say nothing of the monetary savings which can run into the hundreds of thousands.

XML: An international standard, particularly for the new advanced generation of DAM systems, that sets the structure of data and thereby also instructions. It allows the same or different software to 'talk to each other' or carry out a command on receipt of an associated file or a web instruction. [eXtensible Markup Language]

XMP: The metadata standard for adding data to assets such as images and documents. XMP is widely regarded as the successor to IPTC, not only allowing a wider range of fields but the fields may be customised and ‘extended’ as required, almost ad infinitum. For example it is very easy to have your caption data in various languages. The users DAM system recognises their native language is available and presents the caption in that language. You have to input the caption in that language, it does not translate it for you, yet! [eXtensible Metadata Platform]