File Formats for Preservation

The Digital Preservation Coalition has released File Formats for Preservation.

Here's an excerpt:

File formats are the principal means of encoding information content in any computing environment. Preserving intellectual content requires a firm grasp of the file formats used to create, store and disseminate it, and ensuring that they remain fit for purpose. There are several significant pronouncements on preservation file formats in the literature. These have generally emanated from either preservation institutions or research projects and usually take one of three approaches:

  • recommendations for submitting material to digital repositories
  • recommendations or policies for long term preservation or
  • proposals, plans for and technical documentation of existing registries to store attributes of formats.

More recently, attention has broadened to pay specific attention to the significant properties of the intellectual objects that are the subject of preservation. This Technology Watch Report has been written to provide an overview of these developments in context by comparative review and analysis to assist repository managers and the preservation community more widely. It aims to provide a guide and critique to the current literature, and place it in the context of a wider professional knowledge and research base.

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