The Electronic Records Archives Division of the Office of the Chief Operating Officer is happy to report on updates to the Digital Preservation Framework for this past quarter (October to December 2025). The Framework is available through GitHub, and the updated File Format Preservation Action Plans are also available as Linked Open Data.
One new format was added this quarter, Timestamp Reply (NF00885). The research for this format entry was conducted by Alan Katz and Chelly Tavss, archivists in the Trump Presidential Library, while working on a project with the Electronic Records Archives Division. Timestamp Reply (.tsr) files are binary files that are a component of digital signature verification processes that are run through TSAs (Time Stamp Authorities), where a timestamp reply is a response to a timestamp message, containing both the original timestamp and the response timestamp. In NARA’s context, these files may be found in social media archiving packages. We’d like to know more about how the files are created and when, i.e., are they created during the time of a social media post or are they created at the time of a third-party service archiving the post? While we will continue to investigate this format, NARA currently intends to retain the files as-is. We welcome feedback on this new entry!
This quarter we reviewed and updated 56 additional Description and Justification statements in the File Format Preservation Action Plans, including a number of camera RAW formats, the Adobe Illustrator Artwork format family, and formats associated with Lotus 1-2-3. This project is near halfway complete and we hope to make significant progress in the coming year.
The change log in GitHub lists all updates for the quarter.