title: Digital Formats and Preservation: Presentation - iPRES 2005 - Göttingen
creators: Stephen L. Abrams
abstract: Effective digital preservation requires the proper characterization of the objects under managed care. In order to provide full access to the underlying information content of digital objects, the fundamental characterization property is format. Without proper format typing all digital content is opaque. Format typing permits the interpretation, rendering, and processing of encoded digital content necessary to fulfill the preservation mandate to provide access to stored digital content over time. Major format dependencies can be identified in many of the workflows defined by the OAIS repository reference model. Fortunately, a new generation of format-aware tools and evolving sets of best practices are now becoming available for use by preservation managers. However, in many instances the range of formats that a digital repository is expected to support will exceed the local format expertise of that repository's preservation staff. This fact, coupled with the long time-scales over which an understanding of formats must be maintained, underscores the importance of establishing sustainable public registries of format representation information.
  This presentation will review the format dependencies found in preservation workflows, survey recent developments in the area of format-aware tools, best practices, and registries, and will conclude with two cases studies of preservation-driven format migrations.
keywords: göttingen