The Library of Congress has published its annual update to the Recommended Formats Statement (RFS) for 2025-2026. Now in its second decade since launching in 2014, the RFS identifies hierarchies of physical and technical characteristics for creative formats, both analog and digital, aiming to maximize the chances for survival and continued accessibility of creative content. This resource serves both the Library of Congress and the wider community who create, collect and preserve published works, evolving over time to reflect changing priorities and capabilities within the digital preservation landscape.create, collect and preserve published works in all forms. The resource has evolved over its lifespan to reflect changing priorities and capabilities within the digital preservation landscape.
This year brings several changes to the RFS, especially within the Design and 3D content area. A few changes were made to listed formats to better focus on formats related to design and the built environment and to reduce overlap with formats more geared toward GIS and geospatial data. A definition about the scope of this content area was added in response to user feedback: “This content area focuses on the built environment, architectural drawings, stage plans for performance spaces, technical schematics, engineering plans, manufacturing designs and similar. Also included, at this time, are formats related to digitized 3D objects that may be included in mixed format acquisitions. See also Still Image Works for image formats as well as GIS, Geospatial and Non-GIS Cartographic and Software and Video Games for related 3D, dynamic and interactive formats.”