[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[Tom Worthington]

Ivan Trundle wrote:
> On 07/12/2010, at 10:01 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> 
>> Literally the last thing the user wants is a whole report
>> downloaded in PDF.
> 
> ... It's not good to generalise. ...

It is not good to generalise, in general? ;-)

> How about an archivable original, stored in any uniform and
> future-proof way, from which any repurposing is possible?

The ePub format would do fine as an archival format. It is in a stable
version of HTML and so easy to re-purpose: 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB>.

> We don't all live in an online world - otherwise book stores,
> libraries and publishing houses would have disappeared long ago.  ...

The Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) was disbanded in
1997. The production facilities were sold to a private company and
publishing responsibility was devolved to individual departments:
<http://www.publications.gov.au/obtain.html>

Book stores are disappearing. Unfortunately the latest ABS data I could
find was from 2003/04:
<http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/1371.0Main+Features12003-04?OpenDocument>.

Libraries are not disappearing, but instead evolving into online
information access points. Have a look at the ground floor of the
average university library and you will notice there are only a few
token printed books left, amongst all the computers, in the "learning 
commons": 
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/09/designs-for-learning-commons.html>.

I will be speaking on this at next years "Learning Commons Development 
and Design " conferecne in Brisbane, 30 March 2011: 
<http://www.informa.com.au/conferences/education/learning-commons-development-and-design-forum>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra