JHOVE
| Company type | Software tool |
|---|---|
| Industry | Digital preservation, Software development |
| Founder | JSTOR and Harvard University Library |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Digital object validation API |
| Owner | Open Preservation Foundation (since February 2015) |
JHOVE (an acronym for JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment), pronounced "jove," is a digital object validation API tailored to specific formats and developed using Java. This tool was created through a collaboration between JSTOR and the Harvard University Library, offering a scalable framework for validating various file formats. Since February 2015, the Open Preservation Foundation has taken over its maintenance and oversight.
The current release, version 1.22, can be obtained under the terms of the LGPL version 2. This edition provides both graphical user and command-line interfaces and allows third-party software integration through modular "heads." JHOVE is compatible across multiple operating systems, including Unix, Windows, and macOS, requiring Java 1.6 or later.
It supports an array of file types such as AIFF, ASCII, Bytestream, GIF, HTML, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PDF, TIFF, UTF-8, WAV, and XML. The tool assesses documents for structural integrity and adherence to standards, verifying compliance with format-specific profiles like PDF/X and HTML 4.0.
A follow-up initiative named JHOVE2, which features a distinct codebase, had its last update in 2014.