What is Digital Asset Management (DAM)?
As an agency we have to manage a lot of digital files for a lot of clients.
Meanwhile our clients often have multiple staff members, and often third parties, who all have to access a wide range of digital assets. Far too often, our clients marketing teams get stuck with the hassle of having to try to manage the versions, usage, distribution and access to these files. The most common methods of sharing assets has include email attachments, file transfer protocols and shared folders.
Instead of providing digital assets through these archaic routes we have found that the implementation of a Digital Asset Management system (DAM) ensures that assets are stored, structured and distributed from a centrally point for global access.
This means that data doesn’t get lost. Duplicates are eliminated (so there are no incorrect versions of your assets). This creates a clear overview, saving time as well as server space.
A DAM system also allows for the inclusion of metadata, metadata is defined as “a set of data that describes and gives information about other data”. The more specific the metadata keywords that are allocated to assets, the easier they can be found. This does require some work when entering the data, but it pay dividends as it turns a piece of content into an asset, which is imperative when you have hundreds/thousands of pieces of content so they can be organised and categorised in order to be easily found.
Without this metadata, the purpose of a DAM system is nearly defeated. Finding assets is going to be extremely difficult and cause users to give up adopting the DAM if they can’t filter or find what they need.
Our technology partner for DAM is Third Light, we utilise their latest generation of media library software – Chorus which is designed with agency deployment, client department and project teams in mind. The DAM comes with drag-and-drop features and iOS tablet optimisations, so it’s perfectly usable on PCs, Macs and iPads.
Centralising digital media in a powerful shared library
Unlock the potential of your media with convenient browsing, intelligent search and flexible downloads. DAM helps you securely share and manage great digital content. It’s easy to master and is designed for professional users.
- Replace fragmented storage with a single place for everything.
- Find files easily with a smart, effective search engine.
- Collaborate and share with convenient, secure permissions.
- Resize and convert files without complex desktop software.
- Manage and re-purpose video content more easily.
Centralise digital assets
Everyone who needs to access your media can find it in one place, so they can quickly find and reuse files. Bringing everything together is at the heart of Digital Asset Management. Simply upload and organise files with total convenience, and let others access content they need.
- Give access via the web or as a shared drive on your computer.
- Send brand materials to staff, suppliers or clients with total confidence.
- Eliminate CDs, USB sticks and over-sized email attachments completely.
- Stop depending on busy graphics teams to resize, reformat and share media.
- Track, audit, log and monitor everything in one place.
Search digital assets
Search and find digital assets with fast, intelligent and accurate results.
Fast, effective and completely intuitive search is at the heart of Libris DAM. Experience real convenience, with improved results that are relevant
and precise.
- Search results offer more suggestions that you can click.
- Search inside documents like PDFs.
- Add your own dropdown lists, checkboxes, keywords and free text.
- Enforce controlled vocabularies or selectively hide data.
- Browse by location on maps (and turn GPS coordinates into real place names).
Share digital assets
Sending content shouldn’t involve copying the data to emails, CDs or other systems.
Simply click ‘Share’ to create a lightbox that links to the files, then start a discussion – it’s all about getting the job done, no matter how big or small the files. With Libris DAM, we’ve made it intuitive to deliver artwork and digital media without slowing you down waiting for files to transfer.
- Send any number of files to any number of people – even large videos.
- Discuss and change selections with a real-time chat feature and email alerts.
- Share files via email, Twitter, Facebook, DropBox or as web links.
- You’ll never need a temporary copy, since everything is centrally stored.
Re-use digital assets
One of the most important features of Digital Asset Management is its ability to convert between graphics formats.
Convert and resize images and videos
With the powerful graphics engine in Libris DAM, you can dramatically simplify common tasks such as converting TIFF to JPEG, or extracting images from PDFs. We make re-purposing existing files possible without any software on your computer, and we make video content easy to link to and display on the web.
- Change the resolution
(e.g. convert from 300 dpi to 72 dpi) - Change the colour space
(e.g. RGB to CMYK) - Change from one format to another
(e.g. convert TIFF to JPEG) - Resize and crop (e.g. extract an image from a PDF to use on the web)
- Publish altered files to the web or download them to your computer
Video
Libris DAM video management software makes it easy for your team to:
- store all your videos in one place
- upload and download in different formats (MP4, AVI, WMV and many more)
- extract frames, add markers, tag
and download ranges - send videos to other users in lightboxes (without downloading them yourself)
- enjoy convenience and ease-of-use with no complex software
- have full support for tablet devices such as the iPad
- keep on top of video management.
