Scholarly communication across all disciplines is changing profoundly under the influence of new technologies. New models, tools and standards are being developed that aim to enhance, enable or entirely replace formerly ingrained forms of scholarly communication, including publications, courses, conferences and policy. The Beyond the PDF conference brings together scholars, librarians, archivists, publishers and research funders in a lively forum, not just to broaden awareness of current efforts across disciplines, but to define the future through discussions, challenge projects, demonstrations and seeding new partnerships and collaborations. Individually and collectively, we aim to bring about a change in modern scholarly communications through the effective use of information technology. Beyond the PDF is organized by FORCE11 (
http://force11.org), a group of stakeholders that arose organically from the first Beyond the PDF workshop, held at the University of California, San Diego, in 2011, and a follow on workshop held at Dagstuhl that same year. We will actively engage the membership of FORCE11 to shape and evolve this and future workshops, as the conference itself provides a platform for those interested in creating new modes of conference organization and participation. FORCE11 and the Beyond the PDF conference are supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.