Electronic Publishing and Electronic Publications in Mathematics

Abstract

The increasing development of electronic devices for the publication of papers and books in mathematics has led to a drastic change in the communication facilities between authors and editors, to new ways of distributing mathematical publications to research mathematicians — like electronic journals, and to an extension of the offers of information on mathematical research to the mathematical community. At this Round Table reports were given on different aspects related to methods of electronic publishing, and an overview of the production and distribution of electronic publications in mathematics to their users has been provided.

Most of the contributions given by the invited speakers of the Round Table covered several of these aspects and the corresponding written version of their contributions will be found in this report. The problem of authors’ rights was mainly addressed by Peter Michor (Secretary of the EMS). Two representatives of important mathematical publishers joined the Round Table: Arnoud DeKemp from Springer- Verlag, and John Ewing from the AMS. They gave an overview of the electronic products and the corresponding editorial policies of their publishers. This was complemented by the contribution of Jean-Paul Allouche who reported on a French project dealing with the foundation and installation of some new electronic journals. The most import and classical providers of mathematical literature are the libraries. How they will improve and extend their services by using electronic media and offering access to electronic versions of journals was described in the presentation of Hans J. Becker from the library in Göttingen. Finally, Bernd Wegner (organizer of the European Mathematical Information Service EMIS) described how the system of internet-servers under EMIS is used for the moderated electronic distribution of mathematical literature. This latter service has been developed in 1995 by the EMS as a freely accessible www-tool for information in mathematics and is extended permanently. The written version of this contribution has been combined with the article of Peter Michor.

There was a long discussion during the second part of the Round Table. But no joint conclusions or activities emerged from this discussion. Hence the character of the discussion is represented by two written contributions taken from the many comments made by the audience of the Round Table.