Official web site

Project administration

Related projects | Digital formats | Digital preservation | Standards

PRONOM: "PRONOM is a resource for anyone requiring impartial and definitive information about the file formats, software products and other technical components required to support long-term access to electronic records and other digital objects of cultural, historical or business value." [ learn more... ]
The National Archives (TNA)
Representation and Rendering Project: "In order to ensure that sense can be made of preserved digital objects when the technologies on which they depend have long become obsolete, Preservation Metadata must be recorded and maintained along with the object itself. The Open Archival Information System terms this metadata "Representation Information" (RI) and suggests that Representation Networks would be a useful form in which to record this Preservation Metadata." [ learn more... ]
University of Leeds
Representation Information Registry/Repository: "An OAIS representation information (RI) registry/repository (RegRep) for digital data." [ learn more... ]
Digital Curation Centre (DCC)
Typed Object Model (TOM): "TOM is a data model for describing a wide variety of data types and formats. In a broader sense, the term "TOM" is also used to describe a supporting architecture built around mediator agents called "type brokers", that receive and maintain descriptions of data formats, describe them to clients, and contact servers that interpret and translate data in those formats." [ learn more... ]
University of Pennsylvannia Library

Digital formats | Related projects | Digital preservation | Standards

Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF): RFC 2234, Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF, November 1197. "Internet technical specifications often need to define a format syntax and are free to employ whatever notation their authors deem useful. Over the years, a modified version of Backus-Naur Form (BNF), called Augmented BNF (ABNF), has been popular among many Internet specifications." [ read more... ]
Data Format Description Language (DFDL): "The aim of this working group is to define an XML-based language, the Data Format Description Language (DFDL), for describing the structure of binary and character encoded (ASCII/Unicode) files and data streams so that their format, structure, and metadata can ben exposed." [ learn more... ]
Global Grid Forum (GGF)
EAST: The Data Description Language East Specification (CCSD0010), CCSDS 644-0-B-2, Blue Book, November 2000. "The purpose of this document is to establish a common Recommendation for the specification of a standard language for describing and expressing data in order to interchange them in a more uniform and automated fashion within and among Agencies participating in the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS)." [ learn more... ]
Consultative Committee for Space Data Science
Extended BNF: ISO/IEC 14977:1996, Information technology - Syntactic metalanguage - Extended BNF. "Extended BNF brings some order to the formal definition of a syntax and will be useful not just for the definition of programming languages, but for many other formal definitions." [ learn more... ]
JHOVE: "JHOVE (pronounced "jove"), the JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment, is an extensible software framework for performing format identification, validation, and characterization of digital objects." [ learn more... ]
Harvard University Library (HUL)/JSTOR
MIME media types: RFC 2046, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types, November 1996. "The first document in this set, RFC 2045, defines a number of header fields, including Content-Type. The Content-Type field is used to specify the nature of the data in the body of a MIME entity, by giving media type and subtype identifiers, and by providing auxiliary information that may be required for certain media types." [ learn more... ]
Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA)
Sustainability of Digital Formats: "The Digital Formats Web site provides information about digital content formats." [ learn more... ]
Library of Congress

Digital preservation | Related projects | Digital formats | Standards

Electronic Records Archives (ERA): "The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) will be a comprehensive, systematic, and dynamic means for preserving virtually any kind of electronic record, free from dependence on any specific hardware or software." [ learn more... ]
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP): "Never has access to information that is authentic, reliable, and complete been more important, and never has the capacity of libraries and other heritage institutions to guarantee that access been in greater jeopardy. Recognizing the value that the preservation of past knowledge has played in the creativity and innovation of the nation, the U.S. Congress seeks, through the Library of Congress, to find solutions to the challenges posed by capturing and preserving digital information of cultural and social significance." [ learn more... ]
Library of Congress

Standards | Related projects | Digital formats | Digital preservation

ANSI X3.285, Metamodel for the Management of Shareable Data: "A data registry is a place to keep facts about characteristics of data that are necessary to clearly describe, inventory, analyze, and classify data." [ learn more... ]
ISO/IEC 11179, Information technology - Metadata registries (MDR): "Describes the standardizing and registering of data elements to make data understandable shareable." [ learn more... ]
ISO 14721:2003, Space data and information transfer systems - Open archival information system - Reference model, February 24, 2003
: "An OAIS is an archive, consisting of an organization of people and systems, that has accepted the responsibility to preserve information and make it available for a Designated Community."
Previously available as Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), CCSDS 650.0-B-1, Blue Book, January 2002.
OASIS/ebXML, Registry information model: [Version 3.0] Committee Draft 01, February 10, 2005. "An ebXML Registry is an information system that securely manages any content type and the standardized metadata that describes it." [ learn more... ]
OASIS/ebXML, Registry services specification: [Version 3.0] Committee Draft 01, February 10, 2005. "The ebXML Registry provides a set of services that enable sharing of content and metadata between organizational entities in a federated environment." [ learn more... ]