JISC commissioned a report looking at these kinds of issues, to do with
revision/ version identification of different artefacts in the academic
'publishing' cycle:
Scoping Study on Repository Version Identification (RIVER):
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/RIVER%20Final%20Report.pdf
Howard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Crowther" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 2:22 PM
Subject: Re: PLoS business models, global village
> From: Steve Hitchcock
> The critical point for repositories is to obtain the *source*
> copy of the deposited item, exactly as the author created it.
I'm not entirely sure I agree. File formats change - rapidly! - and
some of the more obscure tools are not commonly installed. For a simple
example, consider a Microsoft Word document with embedded Microsoft
Visio diagrams. There are comparatively few machines on which that
document could be viewed intact, and there is comparatively little
chance that repository software could satisfactorily transform the
source document.
For a more complex example, and admittedly not one to do with OA, check
out the preservation of the Domesday Project, where the source form of
the data is now almost unreadable.
- Peter
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