Federal Records Management

AC 34.2023

Date: June 1, 2023 

Memorandum to Federal Agency Contacts: Updates to File Formats Guidance 

I am pleased to announce that NARA has updated Appendix A: Table of File Formats of NARA Bulletin 2014-04, Format Guidance for the Transfer of Permanent Electronic Records. 

We made several changes to NARA’s file format guidance to better align with new regulations in 36 CFR 1236 E — Digitizing Permanent Federal Records. We updated several file format categories to clarify what are appropriate for digitized records versus born-digital records. We also updated the categories to use language consistent with the regulations. 

We made the following changes: 

  • We updated the name of the category “Scanned Text” to the new name “Digitized Paper and Photographic Prints”. We also updated the description of the scope of the category as inclusive of printed photographic prints and to refer to additional requirements in 36 CFR 1236 E. We added a column for “Acceptable Compression Codecs” to the table for acceptable formats.
  • We updated the name of the category “Digital Photographs” to the new name “Born-Digital Photographs”. We updated the description to limit it to only born-digital photographs.
  • We updated the name of the category “Digital Posters” to the new name “Born-Digital Posters”. We updated the description to limit it to only born-digital posters and refer users to the requirements in 36 CFR 1236 E for digitized paper posters.
  • We updated the name of the category “Textual Data” to the new name “Born-Digital Textual Data”.
  • We removed the category “Digital Still Images”. 

If you have any questions, please contact rmstandards@nara.gov.

 

LAURENCE BREWER   
Chief Records Officer 
for the U.S. Government

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