Today’s guest post is from Kate Murray, Genevieve Havemeyer-King, Marcus Nappier, Liz Caringola and Liz Holdzkom of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division at the Library of Congress.
This year we added two new staff to the Formats team, who have been assisting with format research, FDD updates, and other maintenance activities throughout the year. Welcome Liz Caringola and Genevieve Havemeyer-King!
New Format Descriptions and Analysis
Since our last update in June 2024, we continued our ongoing updates to the Sustainability of Digital Formats site, authoring four new format description documents (FDDs), including Finale Enigma Transportable File (FDD 633), Finale Legacy Music Notation File (FDD 632), Finale Music Notation File (2014+) (FDD 631), and Disc Description Protocol (FDD 630). Most of these were produced in response to a request made by the Library of Congress Music Division due to the significant numbers of Finale files found in digital collections. Disc Description Protocol (FDD 630) is also a new addition to the list of acceptable digital audio works within the Recommended Formats Statement. Together, these bring our annual total up to 48 new format descriptions, in addition to numerous updates to existing FDDs.
A reminder that our upcoming workplan and publication log is published so you can see what’s on the horizon for our research.
Community Engagement
We’ve also been thrilled to contribute to the Digital Preservation Coalition’s exciting Registries of Practice project. For the project’s workbench, the Library of Congress provided reports of digital collection profiles organized by file format extension for 2020, 2022 and 2024, as well as FDD data used to analyze format registries in our digital preservation community, which builds on the work of the existing format aggregator. This work has been crucial to centralizing resources for users and content producers and providing new angles for analysis of the research we produce, identifying documentation gaps and overlaps that impact how institutions may approach digital preservation planning and analysis.
On a related note, the topic of long-term risk in digital preservation never gets old, especially as the format ecosystem continues to rapidly expand. In September, we were delighted to collaborate with NARA colleagues on a presentation for this year’s iPres conference in Ghent, Belgium, All Risk Is Local: File Format Risk Assessment in Two U.S. Government Contexts, where we shared about our agencies’ varying approaches to preservation and digital file format risk assessment, and how our approaches have overlapped, evolved, and diverged over time, according to differing needs. It was a great opportunity to highlight how shared resources and communities of practice can support common goals of digital preservation while serving unique use cases and adhering to varying agency requirements.
Wrap Up
In the new year, we look forward to continued enhancement and production of FDDs, expanded format mappings to share with the community, and more opportunities to collaborate with preservation community partners. Until then, we wish all of our users a wonderful format-filled winter season! We love hearing from our users with comments, questions, notes about upcoming events or activities, or even corrections! Leave a comment here or send us a message at [email protected].
Comments (2)
Hi, folks. As an LC docent, can you suggest how we should address questions from visitors about what are the short-range and long-range prospects of digital preservation?
Mike,
Thanks for reaching out to us and for expressing interest in this area of work. We’re glad to hear that Library visitors are interested in our digital preservation work!
You can take a look at a blog post from 2021 on our Digital Collections Strategy. This post provides insight into the Library’s long-term work around our digital collections covering “the full lifecycle of born-digital materials, from acquisition to preservation and user access.” As noted in this post, “digital collections, and the work related to their acquisition, preservation and access, have become increasingly central to Library of Congress processes and our mission to serve Congress and the nation.” You will find many examples of digital preservation work in the blog posts on The Signal, including posts on formats and web archiving.
Also take a look at the Library’s current Strategic Plan, which incorporates the Library digital direction as well. You can read more about that here: https://www.loc.gov/digital-strategy/.
I hope this information is helpful. Please reach out if you have any additional questions.
Thanks!