1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
|
\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}
|