Subject: Re: CCL:Example of Web abstract with pictures

From: [email-masked] (Henry Rzepa) (Henry Rzepa)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 08:45:13 +0000

Leif Laaksonen writes:

>Making Web publications is not that simple. I don't believe that one
>can use ordinary text and put links into that. I believe that the whole
>text should be written from an other point of view where the links come in
>more logically. The text around the links should clearly show WHAT is behind
>the link. Other aspects like type of file behind the link, file sizes and
>so on should also be seen from the link.

in response to:

>>This may be of interest as an example of Web scientific
>>publishing; it's like an abstract with popup color plates.
>>
>>        http://neuron.arc.nasa.gov/papers/spie_abstract.94/.index.html

Firstly, I believe that the issue  of file size has been addressed, and
hopefully will be taken on board in future releases of the protocol.
As to links, people may wish to browse through
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/RSC/CC/3_03989G.html

Here, I have linked a chemical structure diagram to sounds! We
are working to develop methods of defining molecules as collections
of mapped 3D objects, and linking those to, ie scripts
which produce molecular orbitals or whatever!
If anyone has produced other such links to chemistry please tell us
all!

I should also mention that the official MIME RFC (request for
comments) Internet document will shortly be finalised at our
end, and submitted for discussion! I am still looking up some
references! With a MIME "chemical" type, we can really start
linking and processing chemistry on the webb!
[please innundate with comments AFTER the RFC is published!]

Dr Henry Rzepa, Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY;
[email-masked] via Eudora 2.02, Tel:+44  71 225 8339, Fax:+44 71 589 3869.
From June '94: (44) 171 584 5774, Fax: (44) 171 584 5804
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa.html

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From: [email-masked] (Toni Kazic)
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 10:53:28 +0600

I've been very interested in the discussion since it reflects some of my own experience
with the multiple sides of these issues.  Here is my current thinking, endorsed by no one
official. I'm not an attorney and I realize copyright lawyers make a living trying to sort
these issues out, so what I'm saying is really jailhouse lawyering --- but I think these
issues are too important to be left to lawyers!  My usage of such terms as "publish",
"distribute" and "paper" is variable, but I hope clear in context; rethinking
those would take a while.

It seems to me a look at current usage is advisable as we try to develop reasonable
standards.  I suggest technology is augmenting and encouraging what has historically been
common and apparently unobjectionable practice.  It is quite customary for authors to
distribute preprints and reprints of their work by paper, and no one seems to complain ---
in fact this is clearly viewed as a tool in scientific competition.  When one runs out of
reprints one xeroxes the paper and mails it.  Since most people want their reprint
immediately, they xerox the paper themselves, and my understanding is this use is
permitted under current US law.  With the growth of camera-ready copy and electronic
document preparation, the practical distinction between an "official", glossy reprint from
the publisher and a xeroxgraphic copy fades even further, particularly when photographic
plates are not involved.  Increasing use of direct image capture makes even plates moot,
and can considerably improve the quality of scientific discourse by making a better
approximation of the "real" data available (one can have difficulty with getting the color
right on the plates, or affording the page charges for such items).  Making document/data
files available on the web, gopher or by anonymous ftp is increasingly common, and I claim
that is a logical extension of xeroxing a paper and mailing it out.  (I warned you, I'm
not a lawyer ;-).)  It certainly does reproduce the appearance of the paper-published
version, but the representation of the information is different: a PostScript file is not
the same thing as a glossy reprint.  At least some scientific societies encourage this
practice for individual papers, though not necessarily collections.

In part the growth of reprints, official or not, is driven by the economics and space
requirements of subscription, but it also reflects the need to draw from multiple
disciplines or venues as we pursue our science. Searching the literature is no longer
constrained to thumbing through the indices of bound copies of journals, and reading
habits are surely more eclectic. Thus the cost of individual subscriptions is balanced
against the bother of using the library.  I guess the result is probably the net loss of
individual subscriptions.  Does anyone happen to have any data on this point?

Our current scientific publishing industry and the mutual, essential cooperation with
scientists was spawned by our predecessors' need to communicate without travel.  This
need is even more acute now, and we seem to be getting past arguing about the medium of
communication per se to the lurking and more basic issues of freedom of information, the
facilitation of high-quality communication, and the nature of intellectual property.  I
think publishers can continue to play an important role in marshaling reviewing and
editorial resources, organization of the publication, and provision of archival copies,
independent of the distribution mechanism, but to do this effectively they may have to
exploit aspects of current practice they find troubling.  Failure to do so may mean they
are bypassed altogether: many scientists already marshal resources, prepare camera-ready
copy and review papers.  Hugh Chou's and my earlier response to a request for electronic
abstract submission for the ACS grew out of my experience in soliciting, editing and
publishing papers for the equivalent of a symposium, and the obvious ways the business
could be streamlined for both the editor's and publisher's benefit with electronic tools.
(A plug: http://ibc.wustl.edu/, check the menu for ACS abstract submission demo.  Tom
Pierce will be displaying it at the ACS meeting in San Diego also, thanks Tom!)  Bypassing
publishers would entail important consequences, not just for the economics of scientific
publishing and royalty-related issues, but more fundamentally for the availability of
information.  What would the net-less do for the transitional period?

Many people have made excellent points about the form of HTML documents and I agree.  I'd
only add that with respect to multiple citations for the same paper, current abstracting
services occasionally list the same paper multiple times, usually because the state of the
authors' first names are altered or because the author list has been contracted.
Coordination of electronic distribution, archival time/date stamping and abstracting would
go a long way toward eliminating this problem.  I recently found myself citing both net
and publications in my references, and found a quandary when I realized I wanted to cite
the most current version of a database which was only foreshadowed in a published paper!

Toni Kazic

Institute for Biomedical Computing
Box 8036
Washington University School of Medicine
700 South Euclid Ave.
St. Louis MO  63110

314-362-3121
314-362-0234  (fax)

[email-masked]