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The Library of Congress is once again calling for input as it looks forward
to the upcoming review and revision of the Recommended Formats Statement (
https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/ ).  In April, the teams of
experts charged with maintaining, improving and ensuring the accuracy of
the Statement will begin the annual process of examining the Statement and
the creative works represented in it, to ensure that it reflects correctly
the technical characteristics which best encourage preservation and
long-term access.  Given the interest and the feedback received over the
past few years since the Statement was first issued in 2014, we at the
Library of Congress feel that the Statement could benefit this time around
by focusing the review and revision process on a few key areas.

The first of these is the metadata which is so crucial to preservation and
access.  This has long been an important part of the Statement, but we are
aware that it can sometimes be overshadowed by questions of file formats.
This year we plan on taking a more focused look at options for metadata,
including the work of the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative
(FADGI) (http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/) to determine what might be
applicable to the Recommended Formats Statement.  Similarly, work by the
Library of Congress on the archiving of podcasts has raised some
interesting questions about the metadata used for this particular and
important type of sound recording, which potentially might be included in
the Statement as well.  Taking a closer look at metadata across the
creative categories has the potential to better identify metadata or even
metadata schemas which could prove very valuable for preservation and
long-term access and should be included in the upcoming version of the
Recommended Formats Statement.

This is not to exclude the examination of other aspects of the Statement.
As this is the first year in which Websites have been included, we are very
interested in reviewing the first iteration and determining what holds up
and what should be changed – and the Library would very much like to get
feedback from external stakeholders in the web archiving community on this
as well.  Likewise, we will be asking about how best to ensure that, when
it comes to Software and Electronic Gaming and Learning, we are very clear
on the preference of source code and of direct file submission.  If this is
not absolutely clear, we need to know.

So, the Library of Congress requests that anyone with input, comments or
feedback, either on the topics above or on any aspect of the Recommended
Formats Statement, including on ways in which to make it more user
friendly, please share that with us by *March 31*, through one of the
e-mail contacts listed on the Recommended Formats Statement website or
through the e-mail address listed below.

For more information, please contact Ted Westervelt [[log in to unmask]]


(Please excuse cross-posting)

Ardie Bausenbach
Library of Congress
ILS Program Office
[log in to unmask]

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