The University of Texas at Austin is comprised of multiple academic entities that pursue different areas of teaching and research. Universities across the nation reflect an increasing trend toward interdisciplinary efforts. The development of centers of interdisciplinary study here at the University of Texas attest to this development. The ability to provide web access to digital resources through a cross-disciplinary inter-related system of powerful searching ability supports this trend.
The Metadata Registry, the primary underlying component of DAMS, is the tool by which this organic system of knowledge access can be achieved. Digital objects possess inherent metadata. There is also considerable amounts of metadata that are implicit but must be recorded in some way to become useful. However, simply recording metadata will not lead to better information access. Providing that metadata through a central system, which is accessible by a wide audience will make discovery of digital assets much easier. Controlling access to those digital assets can also be achieved through metadata by determining and recording who or what category of user has access to certain digital objects. Consequently, DAMS’ Metadata Registry as illustrated in the following figure can bridge the divides between campus entities, researchers and information seekers. This registry also serves to unite digital resources throughout the campus despite the physical storage location. While it may be beneficial for some campus digital content producers to turn the storage and management of their digital collections over to DAMS other organizations within the University may want to house their digital collections locally, especially if the digital asset is dynamic and constantly being updated.
The Digital Archives is intended to provide a storage solution for smaller digital asset producing endeavors where storage costs can be prohibitive. The maintenance of a local server for the storage of a relatively small digital collection can be extremely costly. By centralizing storage on the systems' file servers costs can be reduced. The Digital Archive, however, is not simply a storage server. It also provides a secure, trustworthy, reliable data store for long-term retention of digital assets. The submission of digital collections to the Digital Archives for long-term retention involves a procedural process for gathering information about the digital collections’ preservation and retention needs and a formalized service agreement outlining the responsibilities of DAMS and the digital content producing entity for ensuring the preservation and management of the digital asset.
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