Like many
institutional repositories, Stanford also settled on the concept of a
“preferred” status to focus our commitment to (and our depositors’
expectations of) the most thorough preservation services on a small number of
formats. We hope this will result in more predictability in our workflow and
increased efficiency of our preservation activities. Note that not all
formats with a Format Score of zero automatically earn the “preferred”
status; here we consider what Fleischhauer and Arm refer to as quality
& functionality factors to help us choose. Similarly, assigning
“preferred” status does not require a Format Score of zero; a format that is
both highly suited to a specific purpose in our institutional context and free
of risk factors does not always exist.