One of the biggest challenges facing the digital preservation community is the relentless pace at which new and unique filetypes emerge, which often necessarily lack established best practices for preservation. While common digital files like images and documents have had new file extensions introduced over-time, the raw meaning and intent of an image or document of any extension can still generally be retained; even if they include new features or ways to express their content that cannot necessarily be precisely reproduced by a normalised format.

New and novel file formats, however, present several unique challenges.

Case: Preserving 3D Data

For example, 3D scanning systems capture data in a variety of formats, depending on the hardware and software platforms used to create the data. Some formats may be proprietary, while others may be open but lack the necessary context for long-term preservation. These systems are also evolving constantly, which can accelerate the obsolescence of older formats (think the wild west of word-processing software before office became dominant). Software developers are constantly adding new facets to the data their tools produce, and each of these new elements have to be assessed for their significance and whether the value of the digital object as a whole is dependent on it's preservation. This problem is also compounded by the nature of business-to-business software markets, where closed and proprietary can often represent the opportunity to offer a totally unique proposition. CAD systems, for instance, often use closed, proprietary file formats that each can express different features or data that is supported by that CAD ecosystem and in turn introduce a serious lack of interoperability between software and create additional work for digital archivists.

Case: Preserving Switch Games (and other consoles)

Similarly, video games present another set of specific challenges. These games often rely on proprietary hardware and software, making it difficult to accurately emulate them on different systems. The Nintendo Switch, for example, features a highly distinctive hardware design with several interactive elements and properties that cannot accurately be replicated on "standard" computing systems, or emulated with software. You would not be able to replicate the haptic feedback or positional tracking capabilities of the Switch controller, which can often comprise a major part of the mechanics of a Switch game, without dedicated hardware. Stakeholders must ultimately decide whether a unique feature of a given platform comprises a "significant property" of it's output content; while the haptic or positional capabilities of a Switch controller may be a major piece of a games' interaction or feedback mechanisms, they're not implicitly elements that must be preserved in order to maintain the value of the game over time. In that example, preserved copies of Switch games could simply be interacted with through more standard interfaces (keyboard, contemporary controller) and the context of their original control and feedback mechanisms recorded with simple descriptive metadata. The value of the game as an artefact that is historically, socially or informationally significant is almost unchanged.

The formats, arrangement and content of the files that make up games and 3D data formats themselves can also be highly complex structured groupings of data that might only be consistent for a single generation of devices and are likely to not be backwards-compatible enhancements of previous structures.

Good enough

The challenge of preserving content like Switch games, 3D scanning data or CAD data without established best practices requires a proactive and innovative approach. It's essential that Digital Archivists stay up-to-date with emerging technologies that relate to their collections and collaborate across disciplines to develop new preservation strategies that address the unique challenges posed by these new file types.

Standards are the natural way to encourage best-practice, but the new challenges presented by modern filetypes can often necessitate that we adopt what Jenny Mitcham, a star of the Digital Preservation community, described in an article discussing sustainable preservation as "good enough" practice.

https://www.dpconline.org/blog/enacting-environmentally-sustainable-preservation-some-thoughts

It's important to note that while Jenny was referring to making concessions in our decision-making process to the environmental impact of digital preservation, there are clear parallels to the obstacles presented by preserving new and novel filetypes. It would be unreasonable for standards and guidance to keep up with the pace of the development of these systems, so concessions must necessarily be made and a level of loss of data must be tolerated. In her article, Jenny aptly notes that this is something Digital Archivists are used to under the traditional pressures of time, money and staff. The need to be more discretionary with what information can reasonably be preserved will only be amplified as the pace of emerging technologies increases.

What comes next?

Ultimately, it's important to maintain focus on the distilled impetus of most digital preservation efforts: to maintain the value of digital content over time. This means to this end are constantly modulated by external factors, and we are likely to see more consideration paid towards the more poignant ones in the way we approach digital preservation. It's possible we will see a shift in focus from archivists striving to achieve the most thorough representation of their collections, to instead optimising their workflows to retain as much (or perhaps little) information about an object as required to protect it's core value (or it's "significant properties") and nothing more.

In practical terms, efforts from standards bodies and continued collaboration and discourse with people who have true expertise with a given unique format is the only reliable way to unify a robust strategy for preserving emerging filetypes.