The italian guidelines on creation, management and preservation of digital records. A proposed methodology for file formats assessment

This paper aims to address the issue of file formats assessment for the preservation of digital records, which is fundamental because the chances of preserving records produced in these formats over time depend greatly on it. In particular, the paper presents and discusses the methodology proposed by the Italian Agency for Digital Government who recently published the “Guidelines on the Creation, Management and Preservation of Digital Records”. This methodology is based on a quantitative method that evaluates some properties of file formats and assigns them a score; the sum of these scores is the so-called “interoperability index” that provides useful information in order to establish whether the format is prone to obsolescence or not. The methodology is explained with examples that show its potential. Some suggestions for improvement and further developments are then discussed.