Making Optimal Use of the Electronic Environment

We explore ways in which to optimize the utility to the user of an electronic mathematics journal. We consider the following topics:

• The Formats of Articles
• Linking Between Electronic Resources
• Searchable Keyword Indices
• Archives of Supporting Materials

Examples in this discussion are taken from the two electronic math journals hosted at the University at Albany, the New York Journal of Mathematics and the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, Electronic Edition.

The Formats of Articles

Prognostication: The rate of access of electronic mathematics journals from PCs will surpass the rate of access from unix systems in the near future.

Reasons:

• High speed cable access from home
• Expense: Replacement costs are sufficiently lower that available PC's are likely to be considerably faster than available workstations (which are likely to be older models).

Result: Access from a PC is likely to be more convenient and more responsive (in terms of the speed of client-side software) than access from a workstation.

Consequences:

• Software compatibility between platforms becomes more important. E.g.:
  • There are two, incompatible sets of HyperTeX \specials (for placing hypertext links directly in dvi files): one used by some unix software and the other by some PC software. The latter cannot process links to external documents.
  • There are multiple, incompatible sets of specials for inclusion of graphics in TeX documents.
  • Very few (if any) dvi viewers on PC platforms will display postscript graphics. But included postscript graphics have become a standard feature in the unix TeX world, and in printed TeX documents.
• Low maintenance software increases in relative value. E.g.:
  • Not every PC-using mathematician has the time and experience to maintain a TeX installation.
  • Very few platforms have any native postscript capabilities (e.g., for handling complete documents in postscript form), and many users are unable to install and configure software to view it. Some platforms can't even print it.

    (NYJM has received vociferous complaints from such users.)

Consequence: PDF and html (or more properly XML) based systems increase in value.

The latter are under development, and will take some years to reach the level of sophistication necessary for publishing electronic math journals. Potential drawbacks:

• Less control by publisher on the appearance of viewed or printed documents
• Authoring is currently done in TeX. Good conversion tools will be needed from TeX to the new formats. This is especially difficult due to differences between popular TeX formats, e.g., latex vs. amstex. In fact, with shifting macros for the handling of delicate font issues (e.g., for typesetting mathematical expressions), conversion of TeX source may be impractical. The best solution would be conversion of dvi files. To get results that mirror the original typesetting and fonts would appear to be a formidable task.

  Developments here will be interesting.

Effect of inertia: Due to individual preferences, journals have found it necessary to accept submissions in a variety of TeX formats. Similarly, a variety of graphical formats of the published papers should be provided by the journals, regardless of the fact that some formats have better features than others. E.g.:

• Recent accesses to the New York Journal of Mathematics are roughly equally divided between pdf, hypertex dvi, standard dvi, and postscript (with the least number of accesses for the second), despite the greater functionality of the first two.

But this is due to more than inertia. For instance, users from a vanilla vt100 terminal may be getting postscript simply to print it. And users dialing up from PCs with TeX installations will opt for dvis, as they are the smallest format, and transfer quickly. Many users don't have a hypertex reader (which must be either bought or compiled, depending on the platform), and some dvi viewers may not be able to handle dvis which include the hypertex \specials. Thus, there is genuine demand among the readership for multiple formats.

Nevertheless, PDF seems the most versatile and valuable of the current formats:

Points in favor of PDF

• There is excellent free software (the Acrobat Reader) to read it, available on all major platforms (and self-installing, on PCs), with consistent features. In particular, no large installation (such as TeX's) or expertise is needed to access it.
• The Acrobat Reader can print PDF documents on any virtually any system, with virtually any printer driver. No postscript printing capability is needed. Nor is it necessary to download the article a second time for printing. A click of the mouse while reading the article, and you get a printed copy.
• PDF supports both internal and external hypertext links. The Acrobat Reader follows internal links (and backtracks) nicely on its own, and interfaces nicely with WWW browsers to make use of the external links.
• The Acrobat Reader can search for text strings in the document.
• Properly prepared PDF documents may be viewed or printed at any resolution.
• The distiller (the creation tool for PDF documents) seemlessly incorporates postscript graphics into the document. The graphics are then viewable on any PDF viewer on any platform.
• There is very good compression of both fonts and graphics, e.g., a paper in the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, Electronic Edition, containing 12 megabytes of scanned bitmaps, distills to a pdf file of 473K. No other version of this paper would be as convenient to read or print.

  Even in papers without graphics, pdf versions are significantly smaller than postscript versions of the same papers.

• PDF is a modified version of postscript, where the modifications (e.g., hypertext links) are designed to enhance its utility and performance for reading over the net.

  As such, it is unique in its ability to handle both text and graphics well. Any competing system would have to reinvent these capabilities. Thus, it has a viable niche, and is likely here for the long haul. Support from Adobe doesn't hurt, either.

Missing: a way to print pdf from a vt100 terminal.

Advantages and disadvantages of dvi versions

The advantage of dvis is that they do not contain the fonts at all, and hence are smaller than most other formats. But this is also a disadvantage, in that the reader must have a font installation (optimally also including the metafont program) to read or print them. Fontless pdfs are also possible (John Randall has produced demos: see http://math.albany.edu:8800/hm/emj/demos/Benson_fontless.pdf), and could play an analogous role if one could assume the reader had BSR or BaKoMa fonts installed on his/her platform.

The drawbacks of dvi posting concern the use of graphics (including diagrams) and hypertex links.

• Many diagram packages require special fonts, which one cannot assume the reader has installed.
• Scanned graphics take up huge amounts of space, and seem to be impractical for dvi postings. But many authors still use hand-drawn pictures.
• Even when using nice, compact postscript code, there are no standard \specials for including the graphics. Nor is there a standardized system for automatically unpacking and viewing a compressed dvi + encapsulated postscript archive.
• Not all dvi viewers have the ability to print out hard copy. This is quite awkward, if one is working over the web.
• Not all dvi viewers can view postscript inclusions. This is a big problem on PCs. One could include bitmap previews in the postscript files, but this is expensive in time, effort and software, and leads to bulkier files.
• Very few dvi viewers have hypertex capability, and the ones that do use incompatible \specials.

Larry Siebenmann has a program to remedy some of the above defects. Bill Hammond is considering others. Others are less tractable.

Linking Between Electronic Resources

This is the next major problem to be faced in electronic publishing, in that the placement of such links should be as automatic as possible. We need a useful, standardized system of referencing. The problem is complicated by the existence of mirror sites.

It is also complicated by the existence of multiple formats of articles. Which format should receive the link? At NYJM and the Pacific Journal, each paper has an html abstract page with links to the various formats. That page functions as the paper's home page, and is the logical place to receive the link. But not all journals use this system.

People are currently experimenting with PII numbers for generating links. This is a long way from solving all of the above problems, but may help get a grid of links established between documents.

Searchable Keyword Indices

To be useful, the full TeX source of the articles should be indexed. At NYJM and Pacific, we then provide links to the html abstract pages of the articles containing a match. The actual TeX source need not be placed on the web.

We use Glimpse indexing. The output of the search displays lines in the documents that contain the keywords in question, permitting the user to determine the precise usage of the words in context. Thus, the reader interested in Hopf algebras can screen out the papers mentioning Hopf bundles or Wiener-Hopf operators from a search on "Hopf".

The next step is to develop a system for searching indices of multiple journals at different sites. This is currently under development among some of the independent journals.

Archives of Supporting Materials

These materials may include errata, comments, links to applications and references, computer programs that are used in the paper or that illustrate the paper's results, etc. See, e.g., http://nyjm.albany.edu:8000/j/v2/Zeilberger-info.html.

References

[S] M. Steinberger, Electronic Mathematics Journals, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 43 (1996), 13-16.