Introduction

Many of the roots of digital asset management lie with document and web content management applications. These systems are digital asset repositories, with modules for the ingest, archive, and publishing of content. The products include workflow automation to manage the collaboration between the different parties creating and using the assets. At ingest, content may well be classified to enable the efficient searching for content.

Document management has arisen from the propensity of bureaucracies to generate paperwork. The advent of the desktop computer has released the serried ranks of the typing pool to alternative employment in the customer call centre. Before every knowledge worker used their own word processor, the typing pool imposed limits on the volume of paperwork that could be generated. Now that anyone can create documents, paperwork has mushroomed.

The document template allows everyone in an enterprise to write documents in the corporate style. You only have to look at the growth of the memo. In 1970, the average office worker might get two a day, now they can receive 200 e-mails. Luckily you do not need asset management to deal with the majority, the trashcan is just fine.

Some professions are obliged to document all their work. The legal profession has long generated important documents that have to be stored for many decades. They include the contracts that regulate our lives, from house purchase to business contracts. They were carefully transcribed onto archival paper, neatly tied with ribbons, and then filed away.

As governments regulate more...