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Posted by: Liz Holdzkom
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.
Posted in: Digital Content, Digital Preservation, Formats, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Pedro Gonzalez-Fernandez
The explosion of interest surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) will clearly have a tremendous impact on the world of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM). The Library of Congress is exploring how certain AI use cases can help expand access to our collection, enhance services for users, and improve efficiency. We are still in the early …
Posted in: Artificial Intelligence, Computational Research, Digital Content
Posted by: Liz Holdzkom
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.
Posted in: Digital Content, Digital Preservation, FADGI
Posted by: Tracee Haupt
I’m excited to share this interview with Amanda Lehman, a Digital Collections Specialist in the Web Archiving Section at the Library. This interview, and others like it on The Signal, are created to generate insight into the background, experience, and interests of the people that support the Library of Congress. Tracee: Hi Amanda, could you tell us a bit about …
Posted in: Digital Content, Interviews, Web Archiving
Posted by: Liz Holdzkom
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.
Posted in: Digital Content, Digital Preservation, Formats, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Liz Holdzkom
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.
Posted in: Digital Content, Digital Preservation, FADGI, Guest Posts
Posted by: Liz Holdzkom
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.
Posted in: Digital Content, Digital Preservation, Formats, Tools and Infrastructure
Posted by: Liz Holdzkom
The digital preservation landscape is ever-evolving, and the Library of Congress has recently made a significant update to its Recommended Formats Statement (RFS), to upgrade FFV1 (version 3) in Matroska (.mkv) container from an "Acceptable Format" to one of five "Preferred Formats" for the preservation and long-term access of video materials, reflecting its ongoing commitment to staying at the forefront of audiovisual preservation.
Posted in: Digital Content, FADGI, Formats
Posted by: Trevor Owens
I’m excited to share this interview with Thomas Crowley, one of my colleagues in the Digital Services Directorate here at the Library of Congress. My hope with this interview, and the others that we publish here, help spread awareness about the background, experience, and interests of the people that support the Library of Congress. Along …
Posted in: Digital Content