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Format standards

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Articles | Books | Events | Organisations and Websites | Online tutorial | Policies, Strategies & Guidelines | Projects and Case Studies | Bibliographies | Glossaries | Journals & Newsletters | Discussion Lists | Surveys | Tools | Evaluations

Articles

Archive With Care
Rees, Peter (Date Created: Jun 2005)
This article covers the problems of a lack of open format standards from the perspective of the research data recorded in ELNs (Electronic Laboratory Notebooks), in particular their use by the pharmaceutical industry. Although formats like PDF/A can solve some problems, there is still reliance on proprietary file formats used in analytical instruments and other scientific software.
http://www.scientific-computing.com/scwmayjun05archive.html
Issue 82 (June 2005), Scientific Computing World
Bits and Bites of Data Formats : Stainless Design for Digital Endurance
Aschenbrenner, Andreas In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: Feb 2004)
This paper analyses the use of XML as a preservation format, particularly in those areas which may be problematic. The article discusses the ideal design criteria for the development data types and then concentrates on the shortcomings or concerns of XML in preserving data formats.
http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObject.jsp?objid=0000070511&reqi
d=551
Historical Conversion & Document Formats : Backfile Conversion and Format Issues for Information Stored in Digital Archives
Hewlett Packard; Romany, Nancy (Date Created: 2002)
AIMM Industry Whitepaper on Records, Document and Enterprise Content Management for the Public Sector. First ed.
ISBN: 3936534020
http://h30046.www3.hp.com/uploads/whitepapers/conversion_formats_wp.pd
f
AIIM Industry Whitepaper vol. 2
Corporate Alzheimer's : Coping With Forgotten File Formats
Waters, John K. (Date Created: 04 Apr 2006) (United States of America)
This brief article describes the latest developments in XML based 'open file' formats that claim to free documents from the restrictions of proprietary software for long term access.
http://www.law.com/jsp/PubArticle.jsp?id=900005450719
Safekept
Digital Video Preservation Reformatting Project : a Report
Media Matters (Date Created: Jun 2004)
This report was undertaken on behalf of the Dance Heritage Coalition and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is intended that the results of this research will be used as the basis of a nationally-accepted model, providing a technical foundation to those engaged in dance documentation and preservation, as well as others who use videotape to document their experiences and research. The report describes some of the problems with lossy compression compared to the viability of JPEG 2000 compression as a lossless alternative. Also discussed is the concept of 'file wrappers' by audiovisual digital media which combines video files, audio files, and metadata into a single, unified format. A chief goal of this report was to endorse a specific file format to use for the preservation of dance material. The report concludes by recommending the file format Material Exchange Format (MXF) container format. The report also recommends use of JPEG 2000 compression, as it serves preservation needs and is affordable to implement.
http://www.danceheritage.org/preservation/Digital_Video_Preservation_R
eport.doc
Evaluation of Motion JPEG 2000 for Video Archiving
Gill, Michael; Pearson, Glenn (Date Created: Apr 2005) (United States of America)
This paper discusses the applicability of Motion JPEG 2000 (MJ2) as a format for long term video preservation. This paper examines three MJ2 implementations - Kakadu, Morgan Multimedia's codec and Open JPEG 2000.
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/pearson/MJ2_video_archiving.pdf
Paper presented at the Archiving 2005 conference, April 26-29, 2005, Washington D.C.
Safekept
Guidelines for Computer File Types, Interchange Formats and Information Standards
Brown, David L. (Canada)
This document gives recommendations for preferred formats for various file types and exchange formats. The recommendations include digital audio, digital video, text documents, emails, geospatial data and databases. The recommendations are based on various considerations such as whether formats are based on international standards and are openly available. Although the recommendations were developed to help optimise interoperability of digital information between the government of Canada and Libraries and Archives Canada, the principles are also applicable to computer file and exchange formats generally.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/information-management/002/007002-3
017-e.html
JPEG 2000
Lee, Daniel In: RLG DigiNews (Date Created: 15 Dec 2002)
An interview with Dr Daniel Lee, convenor of ISO's JPEG group, about JPEG 2000, an emerging alternative image encoding format offering advantages over the current JPEG standard, including lossless compression and support for multiple resolutions.
http://www.rlg.org/legacy/preserv/diginews/diginews6-6.html#interview
JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment (JHOVE)
Donnelly, Martin (Date Created: Mar 2006)
JHOVE is an open source framework for the identification, validation and characterisation of various file formats, including html. xml, gif, tiff, jpeg2000, and wave. The article looks at how formats are identified, validated and characterisated as well as system development, standards and legal factors. Also included are sample records.
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resource/case-studies/jhove/case_study_jhove.pdf
DCC Case Studies and Interviews, ISSN 1749-8767
Lossless Video Compression for Archives: Motion JPEG2k and Other Options
Davila, R. Justin; Gilmore, Ian (Date Created: Jan 2006)
This article compares various lossless video schemes including JPEG, MPEG and MPEG 4 as well as some lesser known systems. They are discussed against the requirements that an archival file being both lossless to preserve content and also compressed to conserve storage capacity.
http://www.media-matters.net/docs/WhitePapers/WPMJ2k.pdf
Preservation Handbook : Marked-up Textual Data
Morrison, Allan; Wynne, Martin (Date Created: 11 Apr 2006) (United Kingdom)
This publication is a part of a series of preservation handbooks published by the AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service). Although this document is written for AHDS staff, the information is useful to the broader digital preservation community. The handbook gives an overview of the various mark up formats, focussing on open source formats.
http://www.ahds.ac.uk/preservation/presMarkUp_v4.pdf
Also available in RTF format.
Standards-based Solution for the Accurate Transfer of Digital Assets
Bekaert, Jeroen ; Van de Sompel, Herbert In: D-Lib magazine (Date Created: Jun 2005) (United States of America)
This article describes the results of a collaboration between the Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the American Physical Society (APS) to produce a system for the transfer of digital content from the APS collection to LANL. It discusses the standards involved including: MPEG-21 Digital Item Declaration (MPEG-21 DID), MPEG-21 Digital Item Identification (MPEG-21 DII), the W3C XML Signature Syntax and Processing standard, and OAI-PMH and includes the schema in appendices.
10.1045/june2005-bekaert
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june05/bekaert/06bekaert.html
Tomorrow's File Endings : On Archiving Principles and Archiving Formats
Uneson, Marcus (Date Created: 2005)
This paper discusses general digital archiving principles, such using open standards and text based formats, particularly in regard to the archiving of scientific and scholarly publications. The efficacy of using various file formats in an archival setting are also discussed. These formats include pdf, pdf-a, tex/latex and xml.
http://www.sciecom.org/sciecominfo/artiklar/uneson_05_02.shtml
Safekept
UVC for Images
Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Date Created: 2004) (Netherlands)
The UVC for JPEG is a follow-up for the 'proof of concept' of the UVC for PDF carried out in 2002. This operational tool enables permanent, platform independent access for JPEG images, regardless of future technological changes. The tool may be used to store other file types, such as PDF, but with reduced functionality, with only an image of the material being preserved. It is planned that this approach will be extended to TIFF and eventually to native PDF.
http://www.kb.nl/hrd/dd/dd_onderzoek/uvc_voor_images-en.html
Dutch version available at: http://www.kb.nl/hrd/dd/dd_onderzoek/uvc_voor_images.html

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Events

DPC/BL JPEG 2000 Workshop
25 Jun 2007 , British Library Conference Centre (United Kingdom)
One day workshop on the use of JPEG 2000 in digital repositories.
Presentations (PDF) available from this website.

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Organisations and Websites

Safekept
Digital Formats for Library of Congress Collections
Arms, Caroline R.; Fleischhauer, Carl (Regularly Updated) (United States of America)
This website provides information on the suitability of various formats for preserving the Library of Congress's digital collections. Formats are examined for still images, sound recordings, textual content, and moving images, although it is planned to examine more complex digital works such as web sites. Formats are examined using several factors including tranperancy, technical protection, patents, self-documentation and external dependencies.
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/index.shtml
File Formats Blog
McGath, Gary (Regularly Updated)
Gary McGath is a software Engineer at Harvard University Libraries. His blog features 'news and comments about technical issues relating to file formats, file validation, and archival software.'
http://fileformats.blogspot.com/
JPEG 2000 in Libraries and Archives
University of Connecticut (Regularly Updated)
The decision to create this Web site arose out the Symposium on the Adoption of JPEG 2000 by Archives and Libraries on November 4-5, 2004. The website allows users to register and post their own information on best practice, articles, projects, and products that use the standard. The website provides access to the Symposium report and project briefing; access to resources by type and focus and access to an associated blog. The website has a companion mailing list discussing the application of JPEG 2000 in libraries and archives.
http://j2karclib.info/
MPEG Homepage
Moving Picture Experts Group (Regularly Updated)
This website contains information on the development of international standards for compression, decompression, processing, and coded representation of moving pictures, audio and their combination, including MPEG 7 and MPEG 21. The website has links to meetings, documents, tutorials and workplans.
http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/
OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument)
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) (Date Created: May 2005)
The OASIS Open Document format is an XML-based file format specification for office applications. The OpenDocument v1.0 specification was officially approved as an OASIS standard on 1 May 2005 and can be downloaded from the Office Document Format Technical Committee web page.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
Open Document Format : ODF Alliance
OpenDocument Format Alliance (Regularly Updated)
This alliance was formed in March 2006 from a coalition of over 30 organisations from around the world. ODF is an open standard to allow sustainable reading and exchange of common office documents. The goals of the ODF Alliance are to support and encourage the use of ODF in the public sector.
http://www.odfalliance.org/
OpenRAW : Digital Image Preservation Through Open Documentation
OpenRAW (Regularly Updated)
This website was initiated by a group of digital photographers as a reaction to proprietary raw file formats and the negative impact of these formats on digital preservation and future access. Currently, each manufacturer's format is proprietary and has multiple variations for different camera models. The goal of this organisation is to encourage camera manufacturers to publicly document their RAW image formats.
http://www.openraw.org/
Towards a New Meta Standard for Long Term Digital Video Preservation
Pearson, Glenn (Date Created: 12 Dec 2005)
This is a series of links to documents for consideration about ways to encourage lossless video encoding for preservation, with a particular interest in JPEG 2000 frame encodings.
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/VideoArchivists2005/follow-on.html

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Policies, Strategies & Guidelines

Safekept
Digital Formats for Library of Congress Collections
Arms, Caroline R.; Fleischhauer, Carl (Regularly Updated) (United States of America)
This website provides information on the suitability of various formats for preserving the Library of Congress's digital collections. Formats are examined for still images, sound recordings, textual content, and moving images, although it is planned to examine more complex digital works such as web sites. Formats are examined using several factors including tranperancy, technical protection, patents, self-documentation and external dependencies.
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/index.shtml
Document management : Electronic document file format for long-term preservation : Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1)
International Organization for Standardization (Date Created: Oct 2005)
The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) has released the ISO 19005-1:2005 standard which specifies how to use the Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.4 for long-term preservation of electronic documents. The Press release gives more detail on this important development.
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/commcentre/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDeta
il?CSNUMBER=38920&ICS1=37&ICS2=100&ICS3=99&scopelist=
Available for purchase in pdf and paper formats.
OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument)
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) (Date Created: May 2005)
The OASIS Open Document format is an XML-based file format specification for office applications. The OpenDocument v1.0 specification was officially approved as an OASIS standard on 1 May 2005 and can be downloaded from the Office Document Format Technical Committee web page.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office

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Projects and Case Studies

Alternative File Formats for Storing Master Images
Gillesse, Robert; Rog, Judith; Verheusen, Astrid (Date Created: 7 Mar 2008) (Netherlands)
This in depth report (64 pages) describes a project undertaken by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek on possible alternative file formats for storing master images from mass digitisation projects. The KB currently stores uncompressed TIFFs. This report considers JPEG 2000, PNG, JPEG and TIFF LZW as alternatives. It describes each format and considers the consequences for required storage capacity, image quality, long term sustainability and functionality.
http://www.kb.nl/hrd/dd/dd_links_en_publicaties/publicaties/Alternativ
e%20File%20Formats%20for%20Storing%20Masters%202%201.pdf
JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment (JHOVE)
Donnelly, Martin (Date Created: Mar 2006)
JHOVE is an open source framework for the identification, validation and characterisation of various file formats, including html. xml, gif, tiff, jpeg2000, and wave. The article looks at how formats are identified, validated and characterisated as well as system development, standards and legal factors. Also included are sample records.
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resource/case-studies/jhove/case_study_jhove.pdf
DCC Case Studies and Interviews, ISSN 1749-8767

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Evaluations

JPEG 2000 - a Practical Digital Preservation Standard?
Buckley, Robert (Date Created: Feb 2008) (United Kingdom)
This in-depth report (28 p) describes the JPEG 2000 format and related challenges It is aimed at assisting organisations to make informed decisions about the JPEG 2000 format and their future storage needs. This report will be of particular interest to the archival and library sectors who are interested in JPEG 2000 as a potentially more efficient storage format for their major digitisation programmes and image repositories who already use the format to collect and distribute a variety of images including geospatial, medical images, digital cinema, and networked images.
http://www.dpconline.org/docs/reports/dpctw08-01.pdf
DPC Technology Watch Report 08-01

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Related Topics: File formats | Format registries

Broader Topic: Standards

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