Internet publishing - A tangled Web?

Many private companies and government agencies are now producing records and information for public access on the Internet, computer bulletin boards, or commercial online information systems. The documents and data being distributed electronically include organizational directories, customer service information, product reference materials, and the equivalent of marketing brochures. These changes in publishing methods are occurring due to a rapid growth in the use of computers by the public, an increasing level of computer literacy in the work force, and the tremendous potential cost advantages of conducting business electronically. As the international collection of networks and computers called the Internet is used by more information management professionals, there will be an increasing expectation that publishers will offer at least some of their information electronically.

Despite this stampede toward the "electronic frontier," paper is still the most widely used medium of professional communication for several reasons. Paper documents have an excellent "user interface" and a structure that is familiar to everyone. Books usually have covers, title pages, and tables of contents, and everyone expects to find indexes and appendices at the end of a document. While reading in the typical manner from the front of a work to the back, one can browse by simply flipping the pages. These low technology demands combined with the ability of anyone to browse without extensive training means that paper is a good medium for mass communications. There are no requirements for expensive equipment to read printed paper. For that reason alone, paper products will continue to be an easy method of distributing information to millions of readers for some time to come. It is almost humorous to note that some (probably most) computer trade literature journals still think that "Print continues to be of paramount importance....it's how we reach the most readers."(1)

However, the rapid progress of both computer networks and document management software is creating new and fascinating opportunities for those individuals, corporations, or agencies that can take advantage of these modern technologies. While the audience for electronic versions of directories, books, or journals may seem more limited than the market for hard copy, those individuals who use (or even prefer) electronic communications will probably be among the most well educated, highly skilled, and affluent members of a given segment of the population. They may have the most appreciation for the time savings that can come from using electronic mail for communications, and they may want to access a considerable variety of recent information without having to wait for "Snail Mail" (the postal system) to deliver it to their door. For these reasons, individuals who use computers daily will be very open to reading reports, publications, journals, and other information products on-line either by modem or Internet access. The most effective approach to teaching has always been to offer a variety of learning experiences through textbooks, lectures, and audio or videotapes. By expanding publishing into new media formats and new ways of organizing or accessing information, one can potentially reach individuals who would otherwise have neither the time nor the inclination to use the information products.

So how does one know when or how to offer electronic access to information products or organizational records? By determining the appropriate information products, the costs of creation, and the potential market for distribution, one can begin to plan for on-line publishing. Not all corporate records, library data banks, private directories, or documents are appropriate for easy access by unknown system users. Information sensitivity or systems security considerations may preclude the most sensitive of data and records from being publicly posted. However, if information can be created in usable electronic formats, placed on relatively secure computers to prevent alteration, and updated at a frequency to meet the needs or expectations of users, then a cost-effective and efficient way of publishing information can probably be found. The users of such documents should be pleased with the accessibility and flexibility that comes with electronic documents. The information provider may have found a very profitable way to expand publishing capabilities.

VARIETIES OF COMMUNICATIONS

As with most computer-based technologies, there is more than one way to accomplish a goal. In some cases, fast and direct electronic mail may be the best way to deliver information to an audience. In other cases, posting the information for retrieval on a publicly accessible computer system will produce the desired results. This variety of options means that some decisions must be made about the best approach to electronically publishing any given product.

Electronic mail is still the most common use of the Internet and commercial on-line services such as CompuServe Information Service, Prodigy Services, and America Online, Inc. Millions of individuals exchange mail daily over thousands of networks, as the use of hard copy memos and letters continues to decline in many organizations. Although sending small electronic mail messages can be inexpensive and very convenient, it is a poor method of publishing. One must generally send electronic mail messages individually to known users, even though it is possible to have groups of users already set up for bulk distributions. Each mail message must be individually sent by the computer to a known destination, requiring considerable overall computer system resources, staff time, and consequent expense. Electronic mail is usually sent as unformatted text, with formatted text, graphics or other computer files encoded and attached to the mail message. Unless the receiver of the message has the software needed to unencode the attachment to the electronic mail message, they will only be able to read the transmitted text. Graphics or formatted word processing files will not be readily viewable. Electronic mail is presently being used by some ARMA International chapters to send out local chapter meeting notices and accept attendance confirmations. However, the standard local newsletters are still produced in hard copy and mailed to members in order to include advertising graphics and to reach those few individuals that are still not connected to an electronic mail system.

Listservs are simply electronic mail reflectors on computers that broadcast text messages (electronic mail style) across networks to the individual computer mailboxes of persons who have subscribed for announcements, user postings, group discussions, or other bulletins. Listservs are presently being used by records managers and archivists to conduct extensive discussions by electronic mail about professional issues. However, listservs are not being used by the professional associations for formal publishing purposes. Internet news groups are another means of receiving public information that can be managed with special software called "newsreaders." These "browsers" can be used actively to retrieve and scan items of interest from each host computer distributing the news group information. Both of these methods are still limited for the most part to simple ASCII text messages and information. The same is true of personal computer (PC) based bulletin board software (BBS) that can be installed on a PC so other individuals can use their PCs and computer modems to access information and data. Some BBS software displays graphics, but for the most part it is a text-oriented environment.

On-line services such as CompuServe Information Service, Prodigy Services, and America Online, Inc. offer colorful graphical software interfaces to access electronic mail, information products, and discussion forums. For the most part these items are accessed by traditional computer screen pull-down menus or on screen icons or buttons that pull information out of the vendor's database. There are no true hypertext links that allow navigating directly from one text subject of discussion to another topic of interest based on computer links between the highlighted text references. One can only "jump" to other modules or screens to start accessing different services. However, some forums that cover specific subject areas can be used to download both text and graphic files.

Much of the information that is available in databases and on-line libraries on the Internet is still primarily ASCII text. Gopher server software resides on a host Internet computer system. The client PC module operates as a lookup tool that lets you prowl through the Internet by selecting resources from menus. "If you want to use one of the resources that a Gopher presents, it helps you access it. This is like helping you browse the remote library's catalog and automatically sending you the material that you want."(2) The local Gopher server offers a menu choice that gives the user external access to the Internet. One may then begin burrowing one's way through other more remote Gopher servers' menus to information of interest.

The contemporary colorful, graphical, and hypertext method of publishing information is by using the World Wide Web (Web) on the Internet. The Web is composed of a number of computers distributed across the Internet that offer information for browsing with Web "browser" software. In order to reach these computer systems and delve into this cornucopia of colorful and fascinating information, one should have full Internet access. That means one will need a PC that can run the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and a high speed connection to the Internet. Most government agencies, educational institutions, and large companies now have such software and connections available for use by their employees. Getting connected will probably require some help by computer maintenance personnel, due to the initial complexity of loading the local communications software (such as Mosaic) and establishing the first online connection to the Internet. After that, it is hard to believe how simple and fascinating using the Internet can be.

Within the last year, freely available Mosaic software produced by the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign) has resulted in an explosion of use of the Internet and Web servers. This easy to use colorful software that can display graphics located on remote computer systems allows the user to type in the remote address of a Web server "home page" and then browse the offerings as though flipping through a glossy magazine. By clicking the computer's mouse on highlighted text, one can quickly jump through connected threads of interesting information, including high resolution photographs. This is all the more intriguing when one realizes that these "pages" are located on distant computers that may reside in foreign countries. The response times can be striking with good connections, resulting in the distinct impression that the information is actually located on one's own workstation. It is now possible to produce colorful professional quality electronic journals on the Internet with Web servers.

VARIETIES OF DOCUMENTS

All of these options for publishing information must be compared to determine the best technology and production method for offering different kinds of documents for public consumption. To a large extent, the audience and the composition of the document are the primary determinants of the best solution. Small amounts of text can be offered by almost any means, from direct electronic mail to placing the information on Internet accessible Gopher or Web servers. Graphical information, however, must be displayed by more complex software and is usually downloaded to a local computer screen or disk drive before being displayed by software such as Windows and Mosaic. This requires more preparation of the document before it is presented to the public.

Text documents typically offered for public consumption are member directories, industry standards, professional guidelines, or company operating procedures. Member directories are constantly changing and difficult to keep up-to-date when distributed in paper format. Mailing costs are also an issue when the directory is frequently updated or mailed to a large number of users. Standards, guidelines, and procedures are updated occasionally and may require the interfiling of paper inserts into notebooks that house a complete volume. Very few individuals regularly file updates that must be inserted into existing volumes. Most individuals wait for some massive yearly update that demands interfiling for the work to be useful, and then also try to file all of the back issues or inserts. In contrast, electronic versions of documents can be completely updated by simply copying a new version of the edited document file over the old file that is posted on an electronic bulletin board. In addition, if users are comfortable accepting information on floppy disks, a completely new and updated document that may be several hundred pages long can be distributed easily on a $1.00 floppy disk. The potential costs savings are enormous: reduced paper, printing, storage, mailing, and handling costs.

Although a major advantage of offering these references electronically is that the producers are relieved of the burden of issuing large volumes of bound paper, the users probably benefit equally as they are relieved of the responsibility of storing those volumes in their offices on shelves or in cabinets. It is much more convenient for users to be able to log into a computer occasionally to obtain the latest edition of the specific guidelines that they need, rather than for them to try to store the paper bound volumes "just in case we need them." If the user can copy a file from a remote computer system or a local floppy disk to their own computer's hard disk, they can perform updates of their local information at their leisure and only when needed. If six months pass before the information is needed for reference, why continually file pieces of paper that arrive in the mail? Why not just update local electronic files by downloading up-to-date versions only when they are needed?

If the computer display method of choice is text only, then some changes in the appearance of the information may be expected. Text documents can often be created in word processing software, and then saved to disk as ASCII text files for display on computer systems. However, there may be some required reformatting to preserve tab spacing, line width, font size, and page breaks, depending upon how the computer system expects to display text. Tables may need to be converted to text that is in columns separated by white space. Headers and footers may need to be deleted. The result could be a very trimmed down, but acceptable, version of the original hard copy document. One must then test the acceptability and utility of the document to the intended audience. It may be that the audience simply wants the information, and the information is accept able without much formatting.

Documents that contain color, graphics, or photographs are best displayed on the Internet with Web servers having high speed communications access. These systems commonly use Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to structure and program a "home page" so that the document can be accessed with Internet browsing software. Web home page documents contain embedded references (links) to other accessible documents on the Internet. HTML is a subset of Standardized Markup Language (SGML), one of the most powerful document management standards for structuring, publishing, and distributing documents.

INFORMATION SENSITIVITY AND CONTROL

A major problem with placing information on publicly accessible computers is that not all information generated by organizations is intended for immediate public review or scrutiny. There are always concerns about authorship, copyright, privacy, confidentiality, and the proprietary nature of some information. In most organizations, information that is to be distributed to the general public usually must undergo a formal approval-for-release process. Without a formal information control and review process that authorizes information for public use, an organization could find itself without any quality control or management review of the information published.

Just as records managers are insistent that records management principles apply to all records regardless of media type, publishers of electronic journals or data must take the same responsibilities with electronic media that they do with paper-based products. Information placed on publicly accessible information servers must be reviewed for accuracy, relevance, timeliness, quality, and liability. The same information quality control procedures used for hard copy documents must be developed and put in place for their electronic counterparts. Information placed on computer systems can be vandalized, destroyed, copied, and misused to a far greater extent than hard copy documents due to the ease of manipulation of electronic documents. Computer system security is extremely important when there is greater potential for abuse due to the fact that completely unknown individuals may be accessing a computer system.

RECORDS DISASTERS OR OPPORTUNITIES?

The price of paper can have a direct impact on the profitability of publishers. According to the New York Times News Service, "The sharp jump in newsprint prices, the second-largest expense for American newspapers after salaries, has suddenly made newsprint interesting: to save money, newspapers from coast to coast are cutting the size of their staffs, the amount of news in their publications, and even the width of their pages."(3) It is also next to impossible to distribute paper-based products internationally without incurring significant costs in physical production, marketing, and postage. The same information found in a newspaper or professional journal can often be posted on a computer bulletin board service or Web server for international access without the publisher incurring many of those costs.

There is a tremendous opportunity for professional associations to leverage electronic communications technology to reach their membership. Newsletters, member directories, events calendars, administrative procedures, meeting minutes, and other staples of communication with members can all be published or distributed electronically. There is a growing computer literacy among most professional associations that indicates an ever increasing expectation that professional associations will support some forms of electronic publishing. In order to prevent the growth of a tangled web of uncoordinated electronic publishing by the membership, many professional organizations are taking the lead and planning ahead now.

REFERENCES

1. Michael J. Miller, "Beyond the Printed Page," PC MAGAZINE, 14(3), February 7, 1995, p.79.

2. Ed Krol, The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog, O'Reilly and Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA, 1992, p.189.

3. New York Times News Service, "Price of newsprint is climbing faster," Knoxville News-Sentinel, February 7, 1995, p. C3.

Copyright Association of Records Managers and Administrators Inc. Jul 1995
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