Datamanagers at the Dutch repository for research data DANS recognize CoreTrustSeal Curation Levels in their work. These Curation Levels are seen as useful terminology to structure the workflow. A digital repository should arguably have strategies in place regarding file formats and actions may be taken by a datamanager during Enhanced Curation. These strategies aim to preserve datasets in a FAIR manner, even if the end users may not be aware of the needs for Enhanced Curation nor may seem to care for it. Enhanced Curation provides a clear focus for discussing file format strategies: what might be done, why to do it, when to take action, how to take action and who should preoccupy themselves with these matters.

Digital content is used across the organization to perform the activities that are core to the Smithsonian’s mission and essential to the strategic plan. Deploying this digital content at such scale requires two key considerations, a management strategy that understands what content has Institutional value, and a supported digital ecosystem of tools that define pathways for these assets to make this value usable and accessible throughout the lifecycle.
In 2023-24, The Smithsonian’s Office of Digital Transformation embarked on a project to investigate, explore, map, and categorize the Smithsonian’s digital content, through a pan-institutional lens. The project’s main purpose was to identify and define the types of digital content that describe the landscape of digital products across the Institution. The investigation also identified strengths, gaps, existing systems of support, and conversational themes outlined by digital stakeholders.
This short paper will report on the project and findings. A full project report can be found at Smithsonian Research Online.

Format identification is crucial for digital preservation, yet because of its complexities it is inconsistently implemented in our workflows. This paper shares findings from the “Registries of Good Practice” project and preservation practices collated by the Preservation Registries Special Interest Group. Analysing diverse institutional workflows, we demonstrate how preservation goals, institutional capacities, and specific preservation stages dictated identification requirements. This paper emphasizes the need to connect disparate practices and establish evidence-based improvements for format identification.

This paper builds upon the previous paper “Monitoring File Format Obsolescence in repositories”. This first phase was focused on testing a method for analysing the file format life cycle and detecting a life cycle. With the term life cycle is meant, the popularity of a file format over time shown in a plot. It shows the rise and/or the decline of a file format over the years. This is important input for Preservation Watch and Preservation Planning.
The method of the first phase also research the possilibilty of predicting the life cycle of a file format. This was implemented by using the observed life cycle. Data set was split in a test and training set and the training set was compared to the observed life cycle.
In this paper the method from the first phase will be extended with extra capabilities and a solution for monitoring the life cycle. The monitoring will include notifications when action needs to be taken. The link between file format life cycle and application life cycle will be investigated.