Digital Management of Printing and Publishing (I)

Digital asset management (DAM), as its name suggests, is a general term for various methods of managing digital assets. In the printing and publishing industry, digital assets refer mainly to all the texts of digital publications (including multimedia publications). Picture and layout page files to be output.

The proposal of digital asset management DAM in the printing and publishing industry is the reason and condition for its occurrence and development. Previously, asset management in the printing and publishing industry was non-digital, such as photographs, which could only be stored in film form. Typically, prepress workers used notebooks to record used film and where it was stored. When a printed publication needs to be reprinted, or another publication needs to use these photos. They will try to find them out from where they were originally stored; if the original place is not easy to find or find, it will add a lot of extra trouble; if the saved film is damaged or simply lost, you must find the original to rescan. , make up, copy. Some printers have complained that about half of the workload is consumed in the search and collection of photographs when publications are republished or replaced by other media; other printers say that they have accumulated over 1.5 million years. It is difficult to exactly say which file's content is exactly what the document is. What is the first version?

With the continuous growth of social needs, the mutual conversion between print media publications and non-print media publications of the same content will occur from time to time. It is often referred to as “repurpose” in foreign countries. Requires publication on CD or Web, and then print and publish. According to reports, when some publications were changed from print publishing to Web publishing, they only spent 100,000 US dollars on re-entry of the content. If you need to re-scan and digitize dozens, hundreds, or more photos, the process will be very cumbersome and costly.

Even if all the texts and photos have been digitized, it is necessary to quickly store, retrieve, and access the huge number of digital assets before they can be processed in the next step. In short, digital asset management DAM is bound to happen, and its core is the database technology.
The core is database technology
The database of DAM system stores a large number of digital assets. For ease of retrieval, some use the indexing method of the library. Users often use the Internet method or other high-speed communication methods to access the search database, and download low-resolution or high-resolution files. , can also be converted with different file formats. In short, DAM involves data capture or input, storage, management, correction, processing, output, distribution, and information exchange. Obviously, using database technology, you can do more than store, retrieve, and access assets. In foreign countries, DAM systems can exchange information with company's own systems that use DAM technology, access product price information automatically, and automatically control and automate financial data processing.

It takes a lot of money to build a database, including hardware and software. In general, there are even more than half a million dollars. Therefore, how to choose and establish a DAM system is always a subject worthy of discussion.

First of all, how big will DAM be? Is it the DAM that serves the entire enterprise, or the DAM that solves a specific problem? For many companies, this doesn't seem to be a problem. If possible, it is of course to build a DAM that serves the entire enterprise. it is good. Considering the price and technical implementation of the DAM system, the idea of ​​building an enterprise-wide DAM is unrealistic. The price of the DAM system in the enterprise is too high, and it is impossible for the DAM system supplier to have a deep understanding of the work content of the entire enterprise. Therefore, most of the respondents believe that a smaller, best-quality DAM system should be established to solve specific problems. Publishers have similar views, of course, some from the price point of view, if some publishers suspect that the price of the entire enterprise DAM is too high, that "DAM's price should be like word processing software," "DAM manufacturers are selling tires and require payment The money for the whole car is too expensive." Many publishers hope to use the DAM system to solve their unique problems. For example, newspaper companies require DAM to share content and advertising assets with fraternal units and advertisers. Some publishers are required to be able to solve the problem of file content and conversion of various file formats. Some DAM suppliers are providing products for printing houses and publishers. When asked what DAM system is to be supplied, no one company's DAM system is doing all asset management work for the entire company.

Secondly, is it worthwhile to use DAM as an outsource, or is it better to set up its own DAM?

Of course, if you can do it, anyone is willing to set up a DAM system for your own use within your organization. However, the establishment, operation, and maintenance of a DAM system is technically complex. The use of units is not easy to grasp and the investment is considerable. Therefore, it is recommended that DAM digital asset management be implemented using external resources. The main benefits: First, less investment in hardware and software, such as their own set DAM system to 500,000 US dollars investment, the external resources way only 500,000 US dollars from 3% to 4%; Second, you can reduce the need around the database 5 ~ 10 employees; third is that it can have better cost control and bring many other benefits.
(to be continued)