Here’s what got approved last year:

• Records are always accepted for preservation if they (a) meet the terms of the normal collecting policy and (b) are in a format openable on the current IT platform. If the records meet condition (a) but not (b), the accession will be discussed first by the Technical Services manager.
• Records are preserved only in popular or well-supported file formats, whether proprietary or not (eg .doc, .jpeg). The full list appears below.
• Accessions are revisited every 12 months to check that the file format is not in danger of becoming obsolete. If the format is in danger, then the records are migrated to a replacement format.

What could be added, perhaps:

• The end user customer will not be able to consult the original record, only a copy of that record.
• Records will not necessarily be made available in the same format that they were created in.
• The original bitstream of the record will be kept alongside any migrated versions, to enable a future emulation to be carried out, if that is deemed necessary.

Approved file formats:

bmp	image file
csv	comma separated value
doc	document file
dot	document template
gif	image file
htm	web page
html	web page
jpeg	image file
jpg	image file
mdb	database file
pdf	portable document format
ppt	presentation file
prn	space delimited spreadsheet
psd	image file
pub	desktop publishing file
rtf	rich text format
tab	tab delimited spreadsheet
tif	image file
tsv	tab separated value
txt	text file
wav	windows audio file
wma	windows media file
xls	spreadsheet
xlt	spreadsheet template