Discussing the Future of Electronic Publishing involves discussing change. Perhaps because I became interested in computing more than 30 years ago, I am not as naive and utopian in my view of the effects of computers as others might expect. Maybe I am even more cynical than most, having spent so much of my life fighting with poor hardware and/or software [LAND]. Sometimes I even resist trying new tools. Thus, though I went to college with Bob Frankston, one of the inventors of spreadsheets, I only started using a spreadsheet tool a few years ago. In this case I was one of the last to adopt a change, and so understand the reluctance of many to follow innovators or even early adopters [MOOR].
Now that you realize that I am not going to (consciously) play utopian zealot, let us turn to Rob Kling, an erudite investigator of the effects of computers on organizations, to look for a sensible way to approach our topic.
Following Professor Kling's advice, let us realistically look at the effects of electronic publishing on people and society, let us frame our discussion using appropriate theories, and let us strive for metrics and quantitative measures to sharpen our analysis.
In previous seminar talks, speakers have focussed on Scholarly Publishing [PEEKa]. Electronic publishing overlaps with this notion. On the one hand, electronic publishing is broader, since not all such publishing need be scholarly. On the other hand, electronic publishing is narrower, since scholarly activities need not relate to electronics.
In this discussion we consider electronic publishing to cover the creation and dissemination of data, information and knowledge that is aided in some way by electronic methods. Typically that means that an author or editor uses a computer, usually a word processor, to create or revise or annotate some document. Often it means that copies of a document are distributed electronically, such as through email, or on demand, typically through a server (e.g., WWW). When publishing involves both electronic distribution and other types of distribution (e.g., paper), we have Dual Publishing, which can sometimes be done in a way that is less costly than if the two publishing activities were done totally independently.
Since publishing is usually a purposeful act of communication, and since the use of electronic technology affects the form and spread of that communication, it is clear that there are social changes that have resulted from the widespread adoption of electronic publishing as one of the key uses of computers.
Though scholarly communication, including the rise of journals, is 300 years old, electronic publishing is only slightly more than 30 years old. I remember working with punch cards, paper tapes, and magnetic tape word processors in 1967. In connection with summer jobs in 1968 and 1969 I proposed automation of stock broker activities and of newspapers. The spread of electronic publishing was clear even then, but was accelerated by improvements in lasers, storage, displays, printers, OCRs, editors, formatters, WYSIWG tools, markup systems, and photocomposers.
There has long been a battle over how much authors must do vs. what others in the publishing world undertake. Simple tools are handy for short documents, but long or complex documents require extra work. Originally, the complexity was all in the tables, equations, and figures, but further difficulties arose from structuring (e.g., constructing tables of contents or indices), multimedia (i.e., determining how to create and how to integrate or interconnect, efficiently), and collaboration (e.g., managing revisions and annotations). With documents shipped between authors and editors, or editors and typesetters, issues of interchange arose, especially since the more powerful WYSIWYG systems were usually incompatible.
In the early 1980s, markup was studied, and this movement led to SGML, which later led to HTML and XML [ARBO]. While SGML was appealing to publishers, few others found it usable, and the publishing world is still working to add tools and practices so as to reap promised savings when markup is present.
In the late 1980s, following the emergence of CD-ROM and further spread of the Internet, multimedia authoring became possible, and even popular due to Apple's free distribution of HyperCard in 1987. Many separate contexts for multimedia were explored [BARN]. With faster networks, distributed multimedia was feasible, and has continued as a driving force behind Internet, WWW, and Internet 2 [AGNE]. With MIME, and widespread use of email [ANDE], sharing of images and even audio and video became more commonplace.
Reading from paper is superior to reading from displays, which are too grainy. That situation may change when displays have 100K pixels/sq.in. [LAND, p. 159]. Thus, it is likely that paper will still be widely used for reading for the next 5 years, but when the 7 megapixel displays that cost $30,000 in 1996 cost less than $2000, much more online reading will take place. Coupled with the development of separable displays, and light, flat laptops, electronic paper will become more feasible [PRIC].
At the same time, displays will grow in number and size, with several on each desktop, and wall displays becoming more affordable. There will be a wide spread in sizes, requiring more scalable display methods, which are targetted by systems that use markup along with style sheets.
Documents will be explored in new ways. They will be modeled using concepts like layers with special object-oriented tools [BERK]. Maps, geographic information, video and large numbers of images will be handled in a seamless, integrated fashion.
Electronic publishing will spread beyond keyboard and monitor. Handwriting, speech input, recognition of gestures, as well as output through multimedia and virtual reality formats, as well as speech, will play larger roles. As computers become more ubiquitous, due to changes in size as well as growth in cellular connectivity, more of our work and play will relate in at least some way to electronic publishing.
With more information online, better methods will be needed for searching, browsing, and visualizing. Citations and links will aid navigation. Better technologies will arise for federated searching [NCSTRL] and handling multilingual collections.
With so much information, preservation will become more important. Classification will grow in importance to help with organization of the growing collections, and will leverage advances in topic detection, categorization, and other techniques involving machine learning from large data sets.
As technologies shift, user behavior will adjust. More people will demand fuller support for work tasks, as opposed to tolerating a hodgepodge of tools that fit together poorly. As solutions emerge, some will use computers more extensively and more continuously. As this spreads to groups, there will be more use of annotations, trails, workflow enhancements.
With more reliance on electronic publishing, authors will know more about the technical aspects of their business. They will consider the long term, dealing with utility and reuse as well as providing more support for readers. The thinking and functions of librarians will spread into our systems and services, and into each person who works with electronic information.
On the broader scale, these changes may lead to flattening of the information profession, with more flexible structure and less rigid roles. The work of editors, reviewers, publishers, and others involved in the Information Life Cycle [BORG] will blur and overlap.
As electronic publishing leads to greater social change in the small, and as publishing, libraries, multimedia, and communication become more integrated, there will be more upheaval in the scholarly publishing world.
Clearly authors, publishers, and librarians will be thrown into myriad debates, as the couplings of practices and technologies are split asunder, and new connections and workflows emerge. Central to this scene is the field of digital libraries [LESK].
Digital libraries will provide a common ground for further technological innovation and social change. Work on multilingual collections [KLAV, MAED] will bring diverse cultures together. Interoperability and other enhancements will add to the world-girding connections that digital libraries will facilitate [FOXE]. There will be a serious shift toward digital library support for undergraduate education [NSF]. Hypermedia support and use will be richer, as decades of research come to bear on the primitive mechanisms of WWW [HALL].
Since more people will understand the difficulties of handling large amounts of information, but will insist on doing it themselves (albeit with suitable tools), a new focus is needed on supporting authors.
As we move from the virtual groundbreaking for the Advanced Communications and Information Technology Center (ACITC) to the start of its construction, Virginia Tech should seize the golden opportunity to confront the Future of Electronic Publishing. We should remember that we are a comprehensive university, and reflect on the changes occuring around us, as well as those we initiate. We should make ACITC play a key role, much like the MIT Media Lab had influence on the connection of entertainment, computing and communication. ACITC can be a center for digital library innovation, allowing us to see what and how those in our expanding community learn and discover. ACITC can be a center for reflection, about learning, teaching, research, and outreach. It can be a testbed for educational innovation, a support for diverse learning communities, and a window into the real heartland of the world - rural regions.
Nowhere else in a university does scholarship come together as it does in the library. Nowhere else do all disciplines meet and connect as well as they can in a place that brings together knowledge and encourages collaboration. The Future of Electronic Publishing is to force us to engage in an open, ongoing, lively debate - as we tame new technologies to support our missions - in the broader context of Libraries of the Future [LICK].
Thanks go to NSF, SURA, and the U.S. Dept. of Education for grants related to this paper. Special thanks go to co-PIs John Eaton and Gail McMillan, as well as the many students involved, especially Neill Kipp and Paul Mather.
Author:
Edward A. Fox (CV, directions, hours,
photo)
(home page)
Curator:
Virginia Tech; Dept.
of Computer Science
Last Updated: 98/4/13
Email: fox@vt.edu
(c) Copyright 1998 Edward A. Fox
