Stevan Harnad, Too Much Ado About PDF, Open Access Archivangelism, September 12, 2008. Excerpt:
...[I]nsofar as the current and forward-going articles are concerned, the default option should be to deposit the author's final, peer-reviewed, revised, accepted draft (the postprint) in the author's Open Access Institutional Repository, not necessarily or even preferentially the publisher's PDF....
Comment. I agree, as far as this goes. But I'd draw one distinction and then go further. We should distinguish the final text from the final file format. When possible, we should self-archive the final text. But even then, when possible, we should not self-archive the PDF. If publishers have their reasons for producing PDFs of their published articles, they could (as many do now) at least offer alternate formats as well, such as HTML, ODF, or XML.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/13/2008 10:37:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
