Editorial from Volume 1, #1 of TopCom
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There can be no doubt that electronic publishing is here to stay. The main driving forces are economic. There was an explosion of new journals beginning in the 1960's started to accommodate the increase in the number of publishing mathematicians to meet what was described as an unsatisfiable need as late as in 1968. Many of these journals are supposed to run at a profit, have increased steadily in price, and the funding needed to support them is no longer available except in a minority of institutions. Indeed, a number of academic institutions in California have had to cancel subscriptions to journals published by the American Mathematical Society (including Mathematical Reviews). Library budgets have fewer defenders than those of academic departments, they can cut costs by switching to electronic journals, and we can do nothing to stop them - even though the result is often a substantial increase in time and trouble for us. We can't beat them, so we will have to join them.
Publication costs have been the tail wagging the mathematical dog long before this crisis developed. Editors of journals are forced by economics to enforce such a brevity of exposition that papers published in journals devoted to research (i.e., almost all of them) cannot be read by anyone not active in the research specialty of the author. Key definitions are rarely supplied except to refer to some book in the area in which different notation is used more often than not. Motivation for the benefit of nonexperts is almost nonexistent. (An author may claim that his work has applications to other fields, but rarely has the space to lay in the background needed to justify the assertion.) Those of us who get papers published have had to learn how to write this way, and it will be difficult for us to change our ways. This kind of crabbed exposition has not always been the norm. Look at articles by Hadamard or Borel that appeared in Acta Mathematica, say between 1890 and 1910 where there are leisurely introductions as well as summaries of papers. Closer to home, look at papers by Sierpinski or Kuratowski in Fundamenta between 1920 and 1939. Electrons are cheaper than paper, and once the myriad of bugs are worked out of the new system, we are freed from the need to write obscurely and open up new lines of communication between different parts of mathematics. In fact, a lot can be gained if workers in different branches in topology communicate with one another. Will we take advantage of these opportunities?
In my opinion, we should, if only for reasons of self-interest. Many, if not most mathematicians regard topology as an area in which everything useful has been worked out and that current research amounts only to working out consequences of axioms unrelated to other parts of mathematics. This applies more to general topology, the new set theory developed since Paul Cohen's proof that CH is independent of ZFC, categorical topolgy, and continua theory, and less to geometric topology because of its relation to dynamical systems and chaos. However unfair this may be, we have to deal with these prejudices. There are a substantial number of "general" mathematical journals that will not even consider publishing papers in general topology. Electronic publishing provides an opportunity to refute such canards, not just in expository papers, but in every paper we write.
This path to rejoining the rest of the mathematical community will not be an easy one to follow. The lack of standardization of Tex is a formidable barrier all by itself. The introduction by the A.M.S. of its own brands of Tex and LaTex eases its formidable printing problems at the cost of increasing the difficulties faced by authors because of all too frequent upgrades and the complex instructions that must be followed to submit abstracts or papers electronically. Different electronic journals have separate sets of requirements for submission, and the burden of following them falls on authors or their institutions. Libraries and editors save money and time, but authors and readers often do not. Expensive hardware and software are needed, and as the technology changes rapidly, the expense increases (even though prices are dropping). Speaking for myself, I resent having to spend so much time keeping up with technological changes, and while I get more help from Harvey Mudd College than is available at most institutions, it is far from adequate. E-mail remains a luxury for eastern Europeans and those living in the third world, and depending on the World Wide Web also serves to cut us off from a lot of topologists. Apart from appointing a committee that wrings its hands over these problems, the A.M.S is doing little to address the problems of mathematicians trying to cope with electronic publishing. Another serious problem is archiving electronic journals and making up the equivalent of a card catalogue so they may can easily be found. Topology Atlas is trying to put a dent in them, but much more effort is needed by professional societies and academic institutions. Just having faith that they will eventually be solved is not enough.
The major perils of electronic publishing lie in our own attitudes. How will electronically published articles be regarded? Will papers published this way after being suitably refereed get the same attention and status as those that appear in paper journals? Will we submit papers of high quality to electronic journals or only our cast offs until enough paper journals disappear? If asked to referee such a paper, will we apply the same high standards as we would for those submitted to paper journals? What if the kind of expanded exposition advocated above is used? Will this kind of good writing be appreciated or regarded as evidence that the paper is "padded"? (Both as an author and as an editor, I have seen referee's reports condemning clarity and demanding extreme terseness. In the eyes of many referees, the permissible length of a paper is determined by the depth of its results and not by what is needed for clarity.) Should a young mathematician trying to acquire a good reputation be advised to try to publish electronically or to ignore previous conventions about lengths of papers? (How do you put an electronically published paper on your list of publications anyway - give an E-mail address or a url?) Will we reward or punish those who try to explore new approaches to writing or publishing mathematics? (Fans of Walt Kelly's comic strip Pogo may recall the old quote We have met the enemy, and they is us.) This new technology will have a profound effect on all of us. How will we adopt to it?
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This document was last modified on March 15, 1996.