  Although damped Lyman alpha (DLA) systems are usually considered metal-poor,
it has been suggested that this could be due to observational bias against
metal-enriched absorbers. I review recent surveys to quantify the particular
issue of dust obscuration bias and demonstrate that there is currently no
compelling observational evidence to support a widespread effect due to
extinction. On the other hand, a small sub-set of DLAs may be metal-rich and I
review some recent observations of these metal-rich absorbers and the detection
of diffuse interstellar bands in one DLA at z ~ 0.5.
