AUTHOR SELF — ARCHIVING AND COLOUR CODING
Jayanta Kumar Sahu
Library Professional Trainee
Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar
E-mail: jayantaksahu@gmail.com
When an author prepares journal articles, conference papers, book chapters etc. these can be
freely available in the digital form on internet which is said to be “Self-archiving”. For the purpose
of maximizing its accessibility, usage and citation impact the SHERPA/RoMEO database
provides a classification system, assigning self-archiving colours of “Green”, “Blue”, “Yellow”
and “White” to the publishers depending on their archiving policy.
Archiving colours: The original colour code was established by the JISC-Funded RoMEO
Project in 2003, and now it continued by RoMEO services. The colours provide a simple way
of identifying the general self-archiving policy, rights, permissions and restrictions that are proposed
by different Publishers. The self-archiving colours are
“White” archiving not formally supported
“Yellow” can archive pre-print
“Blue” can be Post print
“Green” Both Pre- Prints & Post-Prints
Pre-Print: The Primary draft version/from of the work up to and during the peer review Process.
Post-Print –Author Prospective: A Post-Print has been defined as the form of work, after
peer review, which has been accepted for Publication, for which copy right licence agreement
has been signed.
Post-Print–Publisher Prospective: The Publisher often reserve for themselves their own arrangement
of typesetting and format Publisher generated PDF. The publishers want their material
to be seen as a professionally produced PDF which fits with their own house-style.
The use of these self-archiving colours of friendly publishers plays an important role in the
open access environment & send a clear message about open access self-archiving for a new researcher or a student it’s difficult to write research paper, preparation of abstract,
design the methodology of research and to reach in findings & conclusion. Also they are ignorant
how to communicate the same with the publisher for submission of their prepared work.
Sometimes they are also unable to review their own works. For such a situation in India the
premier institutes like IITs, IIMs, AIIMSs, IISERs, NISER, NITs, Universities, and all research
institution’s Library Professionals shall take the responsibility for conducting authors workshop,
prepare research guide & style manual etc. These shall be done by the eminent Researchers
& the Reference Librarians every year, which will be helpful to the researchers and students to
prepare quality project, dissertation, theses, journals articles, conference papers, book chapters
etc.
