Today’s guest post is from Heather Alvord, Liz Caringola, Liz Holdzkom, Genevieve Havemeyer-King and Kate Murray of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division and Ted Westervelt, Chief, US/Anglo Division at the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement (RFS) is well into its second decade, having first launched in 2014. It remains an important tool for both the Library of Congress and also the wider community who seek to create, collect and preserve published works in all forms. The resource has evolved over its lifespan to reflect not only changing priorities and capabilities but also its impact on the cultural landscape.
Primarily, the RFS is geared towards published content as opposed to personal papers or archival acquisitions. The RFS is especially helpful for collections development plans and recommending officers, who seek and acquire content, so that they can be mindful of the Library’s preferences and capabilities for specific file formats. If, for example, published content was available in more than one format, the recommendation would be to select the content in a preferred or acceptable format.
This year brings several changes to the RFS, especially within the Design and 3D content area. A few changes were made to listed formats to better focus on formats related to design and the built environment and to reduce overlap with formats more geared toward GIS and geospatial data. A definition about the scope of this content area was added in response to user feedback: “This content area focuses on the built environment, architectural drawings, stage plans for performance spaces, technical schematics, engineering plans, manufacturing designs and similar. Also included, at this time, are formats related to digitized 3D objects that may be included in mixed format acquisitions. See also Still Image Works for image formats as well as GIS, Geospatial and Non-GIS Cartographic and Software and Video Games for related 3D, dynamic and interactive formats.”
Another reflective change is in metadata for Email collections. These elements now better align with those outlined in the recently published EA-PDF v.1.0 specification which is an archival format based on PDF/A.
The Moving Image Works section also sees some changes as the technology evolves away from physical media, like commercially pressed DVD or Blu-ray disc, to file-based data carriage.
Building on the work described in More Formats and More About Formats: New Entries, Format Accessibility Features and Other Updates, formats listed as “acceptable” in the RFS also have information about their potential to support digital accessibility features documented in their entries on the Sustainability of Digital Formats. This information is one of the evaluation factors that RFS Content Teams consider to determine if a format is preferred or acceptable under the RFS guidance. A template of the evaluation matrix with sample data is available for download to allow other institutions to follow the RFS model with the flexibility to adjust to their own needs.
A detailed list of all the changes is available in the Change Log, and in addition to the HTML version, the RFS is also available as a PDF. The previous year’s version is also linked from the home page for comparison.
Comments are welcome below or through [email protected].