Designing Effective Posters: Archiving Your Poster

Why archive your poster?

Scholarly and research posters are typically one-time use items; once the conference or presentation is over, the poster is hung on a wall somewhere or recycled.  However, these "grey" publications often have value as citable items later in the lifecycle of research.  Archiving your poster allows you to:

• Point to a permanent location for your poster
• Cite the actual poster with data and conclusions, not just an abstract
• Archive research that may have value but not result in a published article
• Provide a record or timeline for research progress
• Include official links on reports, CVs, etc.
• Extend the reach of innovations and ideas to a greater, public, audience
• Market the secondary research output of a lab, division, department, or school.

Archiving your poster can be as simple as posting it online in PDF format to your lab or departmental website.  However, for more stable and long-term storage and access, submitting it to an online library such as the Carolina Digital Repository or F1000 Posters is a good idea.

Archiving Locations

• Carolina Digital Repository

  The Carolina Digital Repository (CDR) safeguards and provides access to the scholarly work and research files produced or collected by faculty, students and staff at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This includes scholarly posters.

• F1000 Posters

  The Faculty of 1000 post-peer review project has a dedicated area for posters that have been presented at major conferences and/or reviewed by experts for inclusion in the database. The project encourages scientists to comment on and review others' work in an effort to continue the scholarly conversation after publication.