Welcome!

image of a QR code that can be used to access this resource

Kia ora, and welcome to Searching for a Signature: A File Format Identification Workshop. This workshop loosely follows the concept of See one, Do one, Teach one. Depending on how much time you have for your workshop the balance between teaching and student engagement may vary. We recommend around 1.5 hours for teaching (including some engagement and interaction) and an additional 45 minutes for more interactive workshop activities and sharing.



Callout

Take it offline!

This course has been designed as a workshop but it can also be used as a self-taught module and reference material.

Prerequisite

Pre-workshop reading

Hopefully you will have had a chance to read the pre-workshop reading materials. If you haven’t had the opportunity, don’t worry, we will do our best to introduce everything thoroughly as we go.

Links to all materials can be found below and in the reference sections of this site.

Please do not be afraid to ask questions!

Website layout

Lessons are listed as “Episodes”. As you work through the sections you may also be interested in:

You can keep these tabs open as you work through each episode.

Open source learning

The Searching for a Signature resource is open source and you are welcome to contribute changes and suggestions based on what has worked for you, or what might work better. If you have feedback we are happy to hear it, and if you have used this resource to teach a class, let us know, and please feel free to share recordings or other resources associated with your teaching!

Acknowledgements

Testimonial

With thanks to

  • Francesca Mackenzie - Digital Archivist at The National Archives UK, who was part of the team for iPRES2024’s workshop: What’s in the box? an exploration of container-based file format identification
  • All past and present PRONOM colleagues who work tirelessly on a never-ending shopping list of file formats and continue to dp their utmost to support the resource for the community.

Room setup

Before we get started, organize yourself in the room so that you are able to split into groups of three or more. This will make the final part of the workshop easier.

Tools

Workshop files

Workshop files will be highlighted inline. You can inspect them below as well.

Pre-reading

If you’d like to get a head start or refresh your knowledge, the following resources may help you feel more confident and prepared:

Supplementary resources

Here are a few additional tools and references that may be useful during or after the workshop: