University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Navigating the PDF/A Standard: A Case Study of Theses in Oxford's Institutional Repository

Oates, Anna I.; Downie, J. Stephen; Halvarsson, Edith; Popham, Michael

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/100236

Description

Title
Navigating the PDF/A Standard: A Case Study of Theses in Oxford's Institutional Repository
Author(s)
  • Oates, Anna I.
  • Downie, J. Stephen
  • Halvarsson, Edith
  • Popham, Michael
Issue Date
2018
Keyword(s)
  • ISO 19005
  • institutional repositories
  • digital preservation
  • electronic theses and dissertations
Abstract
The PDF/A (Portable Document Format–Archival) was established by the International Organization of Standardization as the ISO 19005 standard for long-term preservation of electronic documents. In a case study of the Oxford institutional repository theses collection, PDF/A was evaluated as a possible format for standardizing theses disseminated online. While the ISO requirements of a well-formed PDF/A promises sustainability and easy recovery of content, the case study uncovered that the standard restricts some document features from being incorporated into a well-formed PDF/A. Non-conformances to the standard are found across electronic theses and dissertations, from non-Latin glyphs used in scientific and language papers to embedded content, such as images. A further complication for achieving ISO 19005 compliance is that, despite non-conformance to the ISO standard, validation tools do not always catch non-conformance errors in documents which claim to conform to PDF/A. While PDF/A is a logical solution for long-term digital preservation, the stringent standard prevents some content which is frequently used in academic research from conforming to the ISO 19005 standard.
Publisher
iSchools
Series/Report Name or Number
iConference 2018 Proceedings
Type of Resource
text
Language
eng
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/100236
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2018 is held by Anna Oates, J. Stephen Downie, Edith Halvarsson, Michael Popham. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

Owning Collections

iConference 2018 Poster Descriptions PRIMARY
Dissertations and Theses - Information Sciences
Dissertations and theses from the School of Information Sciences