A flexible database schema allows changes to the types of digital media objects, metadata types, and/or metadata relationships without corrupting the database, breaking applications functionality, or requiring the database reconstruction. A database schema stores all objects in a single table. The objects table contains common fields and generic metadata fields. The generic metadata fields reference metadata objects associated with a digital media object. Each type of digital media object can map its generic metadata fields to a different metadata hierarchy. A data access API provides a set of digital media object and metadata mappings to enable applications to insert and retrieve information from the database. The data access API can be updated as needed to account for changes in the metadata hierarchies of one or more types of digital media objects. The database schema can be used to store metadata for digital media objects or other types of data objects.