gas mass density [@lanzetta91; @wolfe95; @storrie00; @peroux03; @prochaska05; @noterdaeme09; @noterdaeme12b]. In addition, the sub-DLAs may contribute significantly to the cosmic metal budget, which is still highly incomplete. Indeed, only $\sim$20% of the metals are observed when one adds the contribution of the Ly$\alpha$ forest, DLAs, and galaxies such as Lyman break galaxies [e.g, @pettini99; @pagel02; @wolfe03; @pettini04; @pettini06; @bouche05; @bouche06; @bouche07].

Therefore, to obtain a complete picture of the redshift evolution of both the cosmological neutral gas mass density and the metal content of the Universe, the less-studied sub-DLAs should be taken into account [@peroux03b]. However, these systems cannot be readily studied at low resolution, and only limited samples of high-resolution quasar spectra have been available until now [e.g., @peroux03b; @dessauges03; @ledoux03; @kulkarni07; @meiring08; @meiring09].The excellent resolution and large wavelength coverage of UVES allows this less studied class of absorber to be explored.

We have therefore examined the high-resolution quasar spectra taken between February 2000 and March 2007 and available in the UVES [@dekker00] Advanced Data Products archive, ending up with a sample of 250 quasar spectra. In this paper we present both the dataset of quasars observed with UVES and the damped absorbers (DLAs and sub-DLAs) covered by these 