What is Digital Asset Management ?

The term Digital Asset Management (DAM) identifies tools and methodologies for ingesting, classifying, searching, adapting, preserving and retrieving the digital assets of an organization.

What is Notre-DAM ?

Notre-DAM is a multi-user open source Digital Asset Management platform.

Which is the user target of Notre-DAM ?

Notre-DAM is mainly targeted to the mid­-market segment (workgroups,
editorial teams, micro-stock agencies, museums). However, it can be
scaled up to meet the needs of larger resource sets (e.g.
digital libraries) or can be adapted to niche applications (e-learning,
health, etc.).

Is it really free ?

Yes, you can use Notre-DAM within the terms of the GPLv3 license. Just download it, install it and try it.

What is a digital asset ?

A digital asset is any media encoded into a binary file, together
with the rights to use it.

What is a resource ?

A resource is a collection of binary
data that encodes a media, such as a video clip, an image, a document
or an audio clip.

What is metadata ?

Metadata is data that describes other
data. Metadata is used within Notre-DAM to provide additional
information about resources.

What is a digital item ?

A digital item is the representation
of a digital asset within Notre-DAM, in terms of resources and metadata.

What are renditions ?

Renditions are different views of a digital item, that have been specifically generated for different uses.

For example, renditions can represent the same image in different sizes, or in different formats, or with different rights.

What is the catalog ?

The catalog is a Notre-DAM tool that allows to subjectively organize digital items, according to a specific view of the operating context, and to perform quick searches.

Is the catalog just a taxonomy ?

Not exactly. The catalog includes a taxonomy of keywords, but also other tools such as the Inbox, the Smart Folders and the Basket.

What are scripts ?

Scripts are sequences of actions that can be executed in batch on a set of digital items, in order to perform some processing on them (e.g. to generate renditions).

What is a workspace ?

A workspace is a working environment where a group of users can share objects, tools and …

Since a workspace can contain items of different types (image, video, audio, document), a small watermark in the bottom-left corner of the thumbnail identifies the item type.

The light-box displays a batch of items at a time. So, in general, the content of the light-table will be split across several pages. Commands for navigating these pages are provided at the bottom of the light-table. You can change the number of items displayed on a page using the “Items per page” pull-down menu.

A set of check-boxes on the top of the light-box allows to filter by type the items displayed in the light-box. If only one type is selected, no type-identification watermark is shown on the thumbnails.

Thumbnails are ordered according to user-defined criteria, which can be changed by clicking on the pull-down menu “Order by”.

Available ordering criteria are by title (dc:title) and by creation date (#####).

The name of your workspace is shown at the top of the window. Your default will have the same name of your user account. You will be able to create new workspaces and to switch among them, but for now let’s concentrate on your default workspace.

The workspace acts as a container for your items. The term item identifies a digital asset within NotreDAM. A more precise definition will provided in section 5. The workspace is initially empty because no digital assets have been uploaded yet.

The workspace is the operating environment of NotreDAM, so you should familiarize with it. Let’s look briefly at the various parts which compose it.

Reference id	Document
CC	Creative Commons web site, http://creativecommons.org
DAM-ADMIN	NotreDAM Administration Guide (latest version downloadable from http://www.notredam.org/documentation.html )
DAM-DEV	NotreDAM Developer’s Manual (latest version downloadable from http://www.notredam.org/documentation.html )
DCMI ES	Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1 – http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/
DCMI Terms	Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, DCMI Metadata Terms, http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/
DCMI Type	Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, DCMI Type Vocabulary, http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-type-vocabulary/
DCMI Usage	Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Using Dublin Core, http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/
DJANGO Documentation	Everything you need to know about Django, http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/
exempi	http://libopenraw.freedesktop.org/wiki/Exempi
EXIF	Exchangeable image file format for digital still cameras: Exif Version 2.2 – http://www.exif.org/Exif2-2.PDF
GPX	GPX The GPS Exchange Format, http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp
Hwang	Tae-Hyun Hwang, Kyoung-Ho Choi, In-Hak Joo, Jong-Hun Lee , Spatial Information Technology Center, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, MPEG-7 Metadata for Video-Based GIS Applications, 2003 IEEE
IPTC Core	IPTC Standard Photo Metadata 2008: IPTC Core Specification 1.0 and IPTC Extension Specification Version 1.0, Document Revision 2, IPTC 2008, http://iptc.cms.apa.at/std/photometadata/2008/specification/IPTC-PhotoMetadata-2008_2.pdf, http://iptc.cms.apa.at/cms/site/index.html?channel=CH0099
IPTC IIM	IPTC – NAA Information Interchange Model, Version 4 Rev 1, July 1999, http://www.iptc.org/std/IIM/4.1/specification/IIMV4.1.pdf
Krogh	Peter Krogh, The DAM Book, 2nd edition, O’Reilly 2009
LaMonica	Martin Lamonica, Adobe leads high-quality raw video format initiative, CNET News, April 13, 2008 9:01 PM PDT, http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9917114-7.html?tag=nl.e703
Lux	Mathias Lux , Revisiting the Vector Retrieval Model in Context of the MPEG-7 Semantic Description Scheme , Klagenfurt University, Dept. for Information Technology , Ninth International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services, IEEE 2008
MPEG-7	ISO/IEC 15938-5, Information Technology – Multimedia content description interface – Part 5: Multimedia description schemes
MWG	Metadata Working Group, Guidelines for Handling Image Metadata, Version 2.0, November 2010, http://www.metadataworkinggroup.org/pdf/mwg_guidance.pdf
PG-XMP-DM	Partners Guide to XMP for Dynamic Media, November 2008, Adobe Systems, http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp/pdfs/DynamicMediaXMPPartnerGuide.pdf
PLUS	Picture Licensing Universal System web site, http://www.useplus.com
PM-WP-2007	IPTC Photo Metadata White Paper 2007, http://www.iptc.org/goto?phmdwp2007
RFC-4122	Leach et al., A Universally Unique IDentifier (UUID) URN Namespace, Network Working Group, Request for Comments: 4122, The Internet Society (2005)
XMP-2010	XMP Specification Part 1, Data Model, Serialization and Core Properties, July 2010, Adobe Systems, http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/xmp/pdfs/XMPSpecificationPart1.pdf  XMP Specification Part 2, Additional Properties, July 2010, Adobe Systems, http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/xmp/pdfs/XMPSpecificationPart2.pdf   XMP Specification Part 3, Storage in Files, July 2010, Adobe Systems, http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/xmp/pdfs/XMPSpecificationPart3.pdf
XMP-CC	XMP – CC Wiki, http://wiki.creativecommons.org/XMP
XMP-DM	Partner’s Guide to XMP for Dynamic Media, Adobe Systems, http://www.adobe.com/devnet/xmp/pdfs/DynamicMediaXMPPartnerGuide.pdf