[cross-posting to same lists as original post]

This is very welcome information, for which we should thank Jane and
SHERPA, but it raises an important proviso:

Of these 69, how many are major publishers and what percentage of
journal publications per annum does each account for? Elsevier and
Springer together account for a vast slice of the market, and if we add
Blackwell-Wiley and a few others we probably get something near a
majority percentage, though I must admit I don't have specific figures.
But if we say for the sake of argument (as I suspect is not
unreasonable) that E & S together make say 30-40%, that only makes 2
publishers. Yet these two may account for vastly more papers than all of
these 69 put together. And let's remember that these two and many other
large publishers explicitly disallow the use of the final PDF.

(I'd appreciate correction by anyone who does have accurate percentage
figures available.)

The only publisher that I can think of offhand that explicitly mandates
the use of their final PDF and disallows any other is the IEEE, though
many more small publishers may take a middle view and allow one or other
in various circumstances, depending on discipline. I suspect these are
very small, though clearly significant, publishers.

Finally, as has been often remarked, the PDF format is far from ideal
from the points of view of preservation, interoperability with future
systems and data extraction. Why then do we focus so much attention on
it? Surely it would be better to focus on the original formats used to
create these PDFs, which we have much better chance of migrating to
future formats. Specifically, we should encourage publishers to use open
formats based on XML. This does not prevent them using PDF as a final
presentational format if they like: it does not have to be either/or.
Different formats should be used for different purposes according to the
task. For preservation that cannot mean PDF and preservation has got to
be one of the main things that a repository is going to promise its
users.

Thanks,


Talat

-----
Dr Talat Chaudhri, Ymgynghorydd Cadwrfa / Repository Advisor
Gwasanaethau Gwybodaeth / Information Services
Prifysgol Aberystwyth / Aberystwyth University

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion list for UK Research Repository Administrators
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane H Smith
> Sent: 27 August 2008 10:22
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Publisher version/PDF use in Institutional Repositories
> 
> Publisher version/PDF use in Institutional Repositories
> 
> SHERPA runs RoMEO as a service to academic authors and repository
> managers around the world to summarise publishers' contracts relating
> to
> open access archiving.
> 
> There is often a question about the use of the publishers own PDF
> version of research articles and whether these can be archived.  It is
> often believed that all publishers prohibit the use of their own PDF:
> in
> fact the situation is very different.
> 
> SHERPA has analysed its records to determine which of the 414
> publishers
> listed allow authors to deposit the publishers' version or publishers'
> PDF of a journal article into the author's institutional repository.
50
> publishers allow immediate, un-embargoed deposit into repositories --
> even more allow use in restricted circumstances. This means that there
> is a large volume of work which can be deposited directly into
> repositories even if the author has not retained their own final
draft.
> We hope that this information will help repository administrators in
> encouraging deposit into their repositories.
> 
> The results have been mounted on the RoMEO site -
> http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/PDFandIR.html
> 
> We have separated the publishers into sub-sets, indicating any
> restrictions that are imposed by the publishers on the use of their
> versions. The sub-sets are: no restrictions, embargos, fee required
and
> embargo & fee required.
> 
> In total this shows that 69 out of the 414 publishers listed in RoMEO,
> allow the use of the publishers' final version of an article in an
> institutional repository in some manner. These 69 publishers cover
> approximately 1334 journal titles.
> 
> 
> RoMEO
> www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
> 
> RoMEO is an online service which allows users to search for
publishers'
> policies on self-archiving. Each entry is broken down into which
> versions the author may deposit, the location of the deposit and any
> attached conditions.
> 
> RoMEO is seen as an essential resource by many in the Open Access
> community. RoMEO is funded by JISC and the Wellcome Trust. Journal
> information is kindly provided by the British Library's Zetoc service
> hosted by MIMAS
> 
> 
> SHERPA
> www.sherpa.ac.uk
> 
> The award winning SHERPA is based at the University of Nottingham and
> works on a portfolio of projects related to Open Access and repository
> development.
> 
> SHERPA is a 33 member consortium of research-led universities within
> the
> United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. SHERPA specialises in
> promoting and advising on the development of open access repositories.
> Other services developed by SHERPA include JULIET and OpenDOAR.
> 
> 
> Jane H Smith B.Sc (Hons) M.Sc
> SHERPA Services Development Officer
> 
> SHERPA - www.sherpa.ac.uk
> SHERPA/RoMEO - www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
> OpenDOAR - www.opendoar.org
> Juliet - www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet
> Nottingham E-Prints - http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/
> 
> SHERPA
> Greenfield Medical Library
> University of Nottingham,
> Queens Medical Centre
> Nottingham
> NG7 2UH
> 
> Phone: 0115 951 4341
> Fax: 0115 823 0549
> 
> 
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