Preservation Policy Mountain Scholar is committed to providing long-term access to the digital works it contains. Adhering to best practices, Mountain Scholar and CSU Libraries staff use digital preservation strategies that adapt to the changing technological environment. Preservation steps may include format migration, normalization, and/or emulation. Which steps Mountain Scholar will take to perpetuate accessibility of a file are determined by the nature of the file format. For example: PDF, TIFF, JPEG, CSV and WAV: More extensive actions will be taken to preserve accessibility for objects in file formats that are fully disclosed, well documented, and widely adopted. Microsoft files, Photoshop, and most video formats: Fewer actions will be taken to preserve usability for file formats that are proprietary and/or undocumented, and those that are considered working formats (e.g., Photoshop.psd) and/or are not widely adopted. To assist depositors with selecting file formats that are best suited for preservation, the following tables details support levels for commonly used file formats. Digital Preservation Support Levels Support Element Full Limited Support Support Assigns a persistent identifier that will always point to the object and/or its metadata. Creates provenance records and other preservation metadata to support accessibility and management over time. Provides secure storage and backup. Performs periodic refreshment to new storage media. Performs routine fixity checks using proven checksum methods. Undertakes strategic monitoring of file formats. Plans and performs migration to succeeding format upon obsolescence.
File Support and Preservation Best Practices The following tables detail the Mountain Scholar preservation support levels for commonly used file formats. Preservation best practices are also described. Text and Microsoft Office File Formats Best Practice Guidelines: PDF/A is the preferred version of PDF for archival preservation. Consider converting Microsoft formats with "Limited" support to PDF, PDF/A or CSV for full support. Submissions of HTML files must also include all other referenced files such as CSS files..txt files should be saved in the UTF-8 (Unicode) character set. Full support of ML and SGML files requires the depositor to include the DTD along with the well-formed ML or SGML file. PDF.pdf Full HTML.html,.htm Limited Microsoft Word.doc,.docx Limited Microsoft PowerPoint.ppt,.pptx Limited Microsoft Excel.xls,.xlsx Limited CSV.csv Full Rich Text.rtf Limited Plain Text.txt Full SGML.sgm,.sgml Full ML.xml Full
Image File Formats Best Practice Guidelines: For long-term preservation, images saved without compression are best. If compression status is not known, preserve the highest quality version (usually the version with the largest file size). BMP.bmp Limited GIF.gif Limited JPEG.jpg Full JPEG 2000.jp2 Limited PNG.png Limited Photoshop.psd Limited TIFF.tif Full Audio File Formats Best Practice Guidelines: For long-term preservation, save audio files in non-proprietary formats. Wave files (.wav) are currently the recommended standard. MPEG audio.mp3 Limited Real Audio.ra,.rm,.ram Limited Wave.wav Full Windows Media Audio.wma Limited
Video File Formats There are currently no well-defined standards for preserving video files, except to use the uncompressed version, retaining the original resolution and frame rate (e.g. 1080p24; 720p60, etc.). Mountain Scholar will closely monitor developments in this area and update policies accordingly. In general avoid proprietary and compressed file formats. AVI.avi Limited MPEG-1.mp1 Limited MPEG-2.mp2 Limited MPEG-4.mp4 Limited QuickTime.mov Limited Windows Media Video.wmv Limited Data File Formats Best Practice Guidelines: For long-term preservation, files should be saved in formats that are: Non-proprietary Unencrypted Uncompressed In common usage by the research community Adherent to an open, documented standard Using standard character encodings (ASCII, UTF-8) The preferred format for tabular data is CSV. Proprietary formats may be included in addition to recommended formats to enhance reusability, but we offer a limited support level for these formats. Accompanying documentation, such README files, should be in plain text or PDF/A. For a more complete list of file formats and characteristics related to their sustainability, see the Library of Congress format descriptions for Dataset Formats and Geospatial Data.
Microsoft Excel.xls,.xlsx Limited CSV.csv Full Withdrawal Policy Content submission to Mountain Scholar is permanent. Under certain circumstances an item may be removed from view (e.g. due to a violation of the deposit agreement). To preserve the historical record, all such transactions will be traced and visible via a provenance statement. The content of the note should be one of the following: "Removed from view by legal order." "Removed from view by Colorado State University Libraries." "Removed from view at request of the author." The tombstone metadata for the work/creation will still be visible to those who already have its persistent URL, but neither the work/creation or its metadata will be searchable or available for harvesting by services such as Google.