SGML for Web Pages

[Robb Scholten]

I think this issue is more serious than anyone cares to admit.  We now 
have hundreds of publishers falling all over themselves trying to create 
electronic versions of their journals.  There does not seem to be a 
recognized acceptable format to use that will guarantee that today's 
journals will be easily interpretable by tomorrow's viewers. 

Ink on paper is an international standard.  It has been in use for 
a long time.  As simplistic as these seems to us today, someone who 
penned a scroll in Alexandria in 100 B.C. would be amazed that we are 
still able to interpret the message.  This is no small achievement.

I will wager that most of what is published today electronically will be 
"lost" a hundred years from now.  This very fact should strike some awe and 
trepidation in the hearts of librarians who are committed to the task of 
archiving information.

The digital revolution requires some superhuman intervention on someone's 
part to capture information for posterity.  Open standards that are 
easily upgraded will make our lives a hell of a lot easier in the decades 
to come.  Is HTML the best standard for display of text and graphics?  I 
don't know, but I wouldn't rush to transform my entire library into web 
pages.

Are there alternatives?  Yes, but ASCII is boring and won't do tables and 
Microsoft owns everything else.  What do we do in the meanwhile?

Robb Scholten
Clinical Computing Center
Beth Israel Hospital

roscho at bih.harvard.edu