The Library of Congress has published the 2024-2025 Recommended Formats Statement. Updates, all captured in a Change Log, include support for digital accessibility features as a criterion for evaluating digital formats, an FAQ to address user feedback and adjustments to preferred and accepted formats across multiple content categories.
This post is the most recent in a series about file format research for the Sustainability of Digital Formats site at the Library of Congress, including many new format descriptions across multiple content categories. In addition, the post provides details about a new effort to document digital accessibility features in formats included in the Recommended Formats Statement.
The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) AudioVisual Working Group has returned to a schedule of two hybrid meetings a year, in addition to virtual working subgroup meetings as needed. In the past year, these meetings have include trips to the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and to the Smithsonian Library and Archives’ new Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative (AVMPI) digitization and processing space. This working group has also published new guidelines: Guidelines for IRENE System Products for Long Term Retention: Deliverable Packages for Imaged Audio Systems and Guidelines for Embedding Metadata in WebVTT Files. Recent work also included open-source software development and maintenance for BWF MetaEdit, FFmpeg, and vrecord. More exciting projects for 2024 are coming.
Today’s guest post is from Genevieve Havemeyer-King, a Senior Digital Collections Specialist in the Digital Collections Management and Services Division. “Development is maintenance.” Brian Marick, “Agile Manifesto” co-author This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Digital Collections Management Compendium’s public debut on loc.gov. The Digital Collections Management and Services Division officially launched the Compendium …
Technologist Ashley Blewer is using the format description document XML files to gather data across all FDDs. She has pulled this data into data visualization tools which allow us to see what categories our FDDs fall into and how many FDDs are being updated (by category, each year). These visualizations help the formats team to identify issues and streamline internal review and update processes.
The Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) AudioVisual Working Group partnered with a consultant and accessibility firm on a project to enhance accessibility in open-source desktop applications for the digital preservation community. This blog post provides information on the applications tested, the issues found, and the technical guidelines and community recommendations to come out of this research.
This post is part of the semi-annual blog series on file format research for the Sustainability of Digital Formats site at the Library of Congress, and provides updates on new and updated file format description documents.
Have you ever wondered what exactly is web archiving? How the Library select which websites to preserve? Or how you would find and search the web archives? The Web Archiving Team’s Senior Digital Collection Specialists gathered to answer these questions and more in a live webinar during the Preservation Directorate’s celebration of Preservation Week. If …