New LoC FDD: WordStar!

[Dan Hockstein]

Hi all, 

I'm currently a Junior Fellow with the Library of Congress working on the Sustainability of Digital Formats site. I wanted to share some of the work that Kate Murray, co-fellow Mari Allison and I have been doing as Mari and I end our time as Junior Fellows this week.

As part of our work, we've assembled a new FDD for the WordStar file format family, which is available here: https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000552

As this is a format family page, we've matched this FDD to all of PRONOM's current WordStar PUIDs. These are:

x-fmt/370

x-fmt/205
x-fmt/236

x-fmt/237

x-fmt/261

x-fmt/236

x-fmt/206

x-fmt/262

fmt/882

We've also mapped this to the Wikidata QID Q105856544.

Additionally, we wrote a blog post for the Library's Signal blog about the process of assembling the FDD - please feel free to share:

https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2022/07/wow-its-wordstar-exploring-a-beloved-early-word-processor-and-its-many-formats/

It's been great to have a window into the PRONOM world throughout our time here, and thanks to many of you for sitting down with us for informational interviews. We look forward to interacting with you all in the future!

-Dan and Mari

[Francesca Mackenzie]

Thank you so much for the update. In our next release these should be all linked up to the LOC FDD as well :). We are also planning on adding a new identification category for wikidata and linking up there as well so thank you for alerting us to the QID.

Similarly thank you so much for the meetings- it has been so great to meet you all and get more insight into the work of the Library of Congress.

Best wishes,

Francesca