Saturday, March 21, 2015

Reaching Out and Moving Forward: Revising the Library of Congress’ Recommended Format Specifications

Reaching Out and Moving Forward: Revising the Library of Congress’ Recommended Format Specifications. Ted Westervelt, Butch Lazorchak. The Signal. Library of Congress. March 16, 2015.
The Library has created the Recommended Format Specifications, which is the result of years of work by experts from across the institution because it is essential to the mission of the institution. The  Library is committed to making the collection available to its patrons now and for generations to come and must be able to determine the physical and technical characteristics needed to fulfill this goal. The Specifications have hierarchies of characteristics, physical and digital, in order to provide guidance and determine the level of effort involved in managing and maintaining content. In order to continue manage the materials, the Specifications must be constantly reviewed and updated and materials and formats change. An example is exploring the potential value of the SIARD format developed by the Swiss Federal Archives as a means of preserving relational databases.
 

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