Melissa I have found this file format comparison table put out by the FCLA Digital Archive quite useful in making these types of decisions. http://www.fcla.edu/digitalArchive/pdfs/recFormats.pdf They organize the table by lowest to highest level of confidence (in terms of being able to preserve long term). I think your presumption is accurate - the less proprietary a format is, the greater the confidence in being able to preserve it.
Trish Rose-Sandler Metadata Librarian UCSD, Geisel Library 9500 Gilman Drive, # 0175K La Jolla, CA 92093-0175 trose at ucsd.edu W(858) 822-0611 >>> MJohnson at historysanjose.org 05/18/07 10:46AM >>> Greetings, We recently completed an oral history project that includes mini DV tapes, a DVD, written and digital transcripts, and digital images. This is the first time we have done oral histories in about 15 years. My question is about the digital transcript. In what format should I save the digital transcript? Text, word, PDF? The digital version is burned on to the DVD as a Word document. I had trouble opening it with Word and ended up opening it with WordPad. Is it best to keep the text in the most basic format? Thanks! Melissa Melissa Johnson Curator of Interactive Media History San Jose _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
