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BackgroundThe first version of PRONOM was developed by The National Archives digital preservation department in March 2002. Its genesis lies in the need to have ready access to reliable technical information about the nature of the electronic records now being stored in our Digital Archive. By definition, electronic records are not inherently human-readable - file formats encode information into a form which can only be processed and rendered comprehensible by very specific combinations of hardware and software. The accessibility of that information is therefore highly vulnerable in today’s rapidly evolving technological environment. This issue is not solely the concern of digital archivists, but of all those responsible for managing and sustaining access to electronic records over even relatively short timescales. Technical information about the structure of those file formats, and the software products which support them, is therefore a prerequisite for any digital preservation regime. PRONOM was developed to provide this function, initially as an internal resource for National Archives staff, and now on the Internet. PRONOM 2 was released in December 2002, and provided support for the development of multi-lingual versions of the system, through the replacement of field tags. Since that time, considerable effort has been devoted to the development of PRONOMs content. Digital preservation staff have undertaken intensive research and liaison with major software developers in order to create an initial core data set of software product information. This work is ongoing, although we would also encourage software developers and others to be proactive in providing information. The web-enabling of PRONOM (PRONOM 3) in February 2004 represented the starting point for the development of PRONOM as a major online resource for the international digital preservation community. The latest version (PRONOM 4) marks another significant step forward, including a significant reworking of the underlying data model to allow the capture of detailed technical information on file formats and support future interoperability with other planned registry systems, and the release of the DROID software for automatic file format identification. The National Archives has detailed plans for further major enhancements over the next 2-3 years, as part of our Seamless Flow programme. Read more information about our future plans. The development of PRONOM 3 has been made possible by the generous support of a number of organisations and individuals. Please see our acknowledgements list. Users of PRONOM may be interested in related international projects. FutureOur plans for the future development of PRONOM can be illustrated by the following roadmap:
Preservation PlanningThe preservation planning service will form the decision-making heart of our preservation system. It will enable us to identify and monitor technological changes and their potential impacts on electronic records stored by TNA and UK Government departments, as well as to develop preservation strategies to mitigate the impact of these technological changes. TNA’s long-term preservation strategy is based on object migration, coupled with retention of all records in their original formats. The system will therefore focus on the development of migration pathways for the automatic conversion of electronic records to new formats as required for preservation or presentation purposes. PRONOM already records information about the product support lifecycle for the software tools required to create or render electronic records and in PRONOM 4 this support information has been extended to cover other technical components such as file formats. This information will play a vital role in making decisions about when to migrate. In addition, existing information about the formats that particular software can read and write can form the basis for identifying potential migration pathways. However, many other factors will also be significant in the preservation planning process. TNA intends to develop a holistic risk assessment methodology for electronic records that will enable us to identify risk factors at an early stage, predict their impact, and plan appropriate mitigation strategies. PRONOM Unique IdentifiersIn parallel to these developments, TNA will be implementing an extensible scheme of PRONOM Unique Identifiers (PUIDs), which will provide persistent, unique, and unambiguous identifiers for file formats. Such identifiers are fundamental to the exchange and management of electronic objects, by allowing human or automated user agents to unambiguously identify, and share the identification of, the encoding format of an object. This is a virtue both of the inherent uniqueness of the identifier and of its binding to a definitive description of the format in a file format registry, such as PRONOM. No existing, universally-applicable system provides for this. UNIX "magic numbers" and Macintosh data-forks do provide some of this functionality, but the same is not true within Microsoft DOS or Windows environments. The three-character file extension is neither standardised nor unique and is interpreted differently by different environments. Equally, the IANA MIME-type scheme does not provide sufficient granularity or coverage to satisfy the requirements for unique identifiers. The PUID scheme is being developed for the single purpose of providing such identifiers. New informationWe maintain a continual programme to enhance the content of PRONOM with new information. Wherever possible, we seek information directly from the developers of software products and file format specifications, in order to ensure its accuracy. We are working to develop relationships with developers, in order to allow this important information to be made publicly available. If you would like to assist with this work by submitting information, please use the online submission form DocumentationThe following documents are available to download: PRONOM 3 user requirements
PDF PRONOM 4 user requirements
PDF PRONOM 4 information model
PDF DROID API documentation
PDF DROID automatic format identification documentation (including XML schemas)
PDF AcknowledgementsSources for information held on PRONOM are listed for each record. However, The National Archives acknowledges the assistance of the following individuals and organisations in the development of PRONOM and its contents: Tessella Scientific Software Solutions Adobe Systems Incorporated (Sascha in Technical Support)
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