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\title{Electronic Publishing -- Out of the Playpen}
\noindent
The third annual conference of the 
BCS Electronic Publishing Specialist Group took place at Exeter 
College, Oxford on 21--22nd March. It was a stimulating event.

This two-day meeting must be one of the best amongst many that 
bring together people with varied backgrounds to take a wide look 
at what is happening in the application of computer-based 
techniques to the dissemination of information. An awareness that 
information becomes knowledge only through concern by authors,
editors, producers and/or publishers for methods was apparent in 
Oxford; philosophical issues and a historical perspective were 
perhaps encouraged amongst the Dreaming Spires. Fine detail was 
not overlooked however.
 
Formal sessions, and the equally important times in between, 
provided face-to-face communications for over fifty highly 
motivated delegates from all levels in many areas of information 
handling. The environment wherever delegates assembled could 
be said to be laden with valuable interchanges which not 
only focused on all aspects of electronic page make-up, which is 
the solid base of the Group's interests, but also encompassed 
commercial realities and futurology.


One comment overheard that could be said to add a perspective (or 
two?) concerned the desirability or otherwise of slanting the 
familiar male\slash female symbols in italic typefaces in an \SGML\ 
environment! Aside from such detail, Electronic Publishing 
specialists must always be concerned with the hardware and 
software employed as well as the continuing process of 
standardisation, usability and ever wider applications. 
Presentations on diverse topics within one meeting in this 
subject can always be brought into focus by very interesting 
speakers and this meeting excelled in this too; throughout, the 
sub-theme of `coping with change' was addressed.


The conference was attended by delegates from a variety of 
organisations, including universities, publishers, the Finnish 
State Computer Centre, IBM, DEC and the Bible Society.
The first (pre-conference) session, especially for those arriving
on the Wednesday evening, entitled {\sl Choosing a Typeface} was given by
Paul  Luna, Head of Art and Design, Arts \& Reference Division, Oxford 
University Press. At the frontiers of innovation in a 500-year 
old organisation, Paul re-designed the range of Oxford 
Dictionaries in Monotype Nimrod from 1984, designed the Oxford 
Shakespeare Volumes in 1986, and the Revised English Bible in 
1990. His talk focused on choosing typefaces for the redesigned University
Gazette and he provided a great deal of insight into why a typeface does
(or does not look) right in a particular context.

The first full day started with a welcome address by 
Professor Sir Roger Elliott, Chief Executive of Oxford University 
Press. A theoretical physicist, Sir Roger noted that 
three other speakers shared his background. By touching upon 
aspects of intellectual property protection and fair reward to 
publishers for adding value to information, this eminent 
scientist set the scene for all speakers, in suitably authoritative style 
and in the context of OUP's own wide ranging electronic 
publishing achievements. Delegates enjoyed 
further opportunity to meet several of OUP's electronic publishing
specialists
and see software and CD-ROM based products at a sherry 
party sponsored by `The Press' before the conference dinner on the
same evening. 




Following the opening address, Eric van Herwijnen gave his views 
on {\sl \SGML\ in the Real World} . Eric is from CERN, Geneva, where 
he is the head of text processing and is responsible for 
scientific document production (CERN publishes 1000 documents a 
year). By answering the questions `what is?, who uses? and how to 
start, with \SGML', this speaker took the assembled experts into the 
library of the future from which users select on-line and print 
the page as they perceive a need for it. The recently much 
enlarged Elsevier Science Publishers would be expected to have 
views on this concept, and Nico Poppelier from that company then gave a 
presentation on {\sl \SGML\ and \TeX\ in Scientific Publishing} from 
his standpoint of author submission of manuscripts using \TeX\
and conversion of it and word-processing formats to and from
\SGML.

\TeX ies may have been surprised and pleased by the prominence given to
\TeX\ in these first three presentations. It may be no coincidence that
all three are (or were) physicists.

Barbara Lloyd, a publishing consultant with DEC, talked directly 
about {\sl Electronic Publishing Out of the Playpen}
from the large user systems viewpoint. It was good to learn that 
DEC practice what they preach, even to the extent of putting user 
manuals on CD-ROM. An exploration of the possibilities of significantly
improving communication by applying latest technology
included an intriguing `book-reader' in `windows'.

The next speaker was Edward James, Lecturer and Consultant in Educational 
Computing at Imperial College, (also a Director of Juniper 
Systems Partnership Ltd). In his talk {\sl Publishing without 
Paper} he considered environmental and other failings of existing 
paper-based publishing methods, and went on to describe (and sell 
a sampler for \quid1.00) his computer package which enables authors 
who are inexperienced in computing to add value to their 
paperless publications. His `paper' paper, lacking the hypertext, was 
also given out.

The last talk of the first day was given by a first-class public 
speaker, Tony Feldman, whose {\sl The Electronic Book Arrives} examined 
the origins and rapid growth of hand-held electronic reference 
publishing (palmtop computers), and assessed the impact of these 
devices on traditional publishing and looked ahead to the first 
electronic books on optical disk. The Japanese are coming!

The dinner in Hall was all that such an occasion should be, good 
food, wine and company with a sparkling (despite travelling from 
the Gulf War that very day) speaker -- Michael Bywater, who writes for 
Punch  and MacUser. The guest's journalistic skills were evident throughout 
his very amusing and poignant speech, as well as in his write-up 
of the event in MacUser (5~April 1991, p.~106). Delegates were 
made fully aware of the EP expert's responsibility by the 
punchline `the history of culture is the history of publishing'.



The first presentation on Friday was by Jacques Andr\'e of 
INRIA/IRISA of the University of Rennes, one of the initiators of 
the DIDOT project to coordinate training in numerical 
typography. Jacques' talk on {\sl The DIDOT Project and Digital 
Typography in Europe} focused on the state of the art of digital 
typography, explaining the need to bring together type designers 
and computer people, as well as giving some fascinating examples of
what you can do with typefaces if you know how to manipulate
\PS\ (and if you want to!).

Following this, Paul Bacsich of the Open University, where he is 
Senior Project Manager in Information Technology and Head of the 
Electronic Media Research Group, spoke about {\sl An Encyclopaedia 
of European Characters}, speaking of the need to clarify what 
exactly a character was. He defined eleven species including 
Roman letters, punctuation, maths and scientific, modern Greek as 
well as the more familiar characters, and 
discussed some of the problems involved in creating the encyclopaedia and in coding and accessing
the characters. 

{\sl Achieving the Automatic, the Invisible, Hyphen} was discussed by
Ronald McIntosh of Computer Hyphenation Ltd. Ronald, together
with David Fawthrop, has developed the Hyphenologist program which allows 
proper word division in 40 languages. In the past British  hyphenation has
generally been based on etymology, but is now  mainly following the US
practice of using the phonetic method. Ronald explained how the various
algorithms work, with extensive examples.

The last presentation of the conference was given by Ali Assam of 
Diwan. Talking about {\sl Distributed Newspaper Publishing} he 
explained how in 1988 Diwan became the system integrator for the 
world's first broadsheet to be produced, edited and remotely 
printed using microcomputers, and discussed the application of 
Diwan's pre-press and information management system products 
using low cost computer and communications technology.
The use of \PS\ as a medium for transmitting made-up pages
around the world to be printed in many remote sites was
yet another reminder of how developing technology makes information
more accessible.

Altogether a most useful and interesting conference, held in 
beautiful surroundings.
\author{Peter Ashby and Anna Duckworth}