The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (SEPB) is an electronic book that currently presents citations for over 1,400 selected English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. [1] Most sources have been published between 1990 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available via the Internet. There is no charge for accessing the bibliography.

The first version of the bibliography was published as an article in The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (an e-journal) in 1992. It was followed by a part-two article in 1994. These two articles were then used as the basis for a new bibliography article, "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography," which was updated 25 times. In 1996, this bibliography was transformed into an electronic book.

SEPB includes "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources," a selective directory of related Web sites, and the "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog," a frequently updated list of new publications and other resources that may be of interest to bibliography readers. The bibliography can be searched using Boolean operators.

The primary version of SEPB is an HTML document; however, to facilitate printing, both Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Word versions of the bibliography are also available.

SEPB is currently updated every two months. At each update, new references and resources are added, any failed links are corrected, and, if needed, references or resources are culled. SEPB will have been updated 39 times by the December 2001 edition (version 40).

Development of SEPB

In 1989, I established The Public Access Computer Systems Review, a scholarly electronic journal whose first issue was published on the Internet in 1990. [2] I edited the PACS Review, which became refereed in 1991, until the end of 1996.

Editing the journal greatly heightened my interest in scholarly electronic publishing; however, it was difficult to find literature about this somewhat esoteric topic during this early period. Consequently, I began to maintain an informal bibliography on this topic.

By 1992, this bibliography had evolved to the point where it appeared that it might be of general use, and I published "Electronic Publishing on Networks: A Selective Bibliography of Recent Works" in the PACS Review. [3] This short bibliography, published in ASCII format via the LISTSERV software, presented references to both printed and electronic works that described early electronic publishing projects, visionary dreams of a new publishing era, and emerging critical issues. It was organized alphabetically by author name.

This bibliography was updated in 1994 with a similar, somewhat longer part two that covered new works on the topic published between 1992 and 1994. [4]

By 1995, the electronic publishing literature was growing rapidly, reflecting both the intense activity in the field as it matured and the catalytic effect of new, more sophisticated distribution tools like Gopher and the Web. While it would have been possible to issue a part three of the bibliography, I decided to merge the prior two parts, cull out works that were no longer relevant, and add a number of new works to a much more substantial version of the bibliography that was organized into topical sections. The PACS Review's liberal copyright policy, which allowed authors to retain the full rights to their articles, permitted me to draw freely on the earlier bibliographies to create a new derivative work. The first version of the new bibliography, titled "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography," was first published in the PACS Review on 3/21/95. [5]

The bibliography was the first article published by the PACS Review in both the HTML and ASCII formats, and it was the first article to test an experimental publishing strategy that allowed authors to submit updated articles to the journal. The HTML version of the article was updated, but the ASCII version was not updated. Revised articles underwent the same editorial procedures as traditional articles. As each new version was published, it replaced the earlier version. New versions were announced on the two mailing lists sponsored by the University of Houston Libraries, (PACS-L and PACS-P), and on other lists.

The top-level bibliography hierarchy (i.e., any section with a two-digit number) was presented on the main article page. The user would navigate the bibliography by choosing a section link. If the section had further subsections (such as "2.4 Electronic Serials"), the user was presented with a page that had links to those subsections.

A section ("2.11 Related Electronic Resources") was included in the bibliography to assist readers in finding key Web sites that dealt with scholarly electronic publishing issues.

Reflecting the changing nature of the literature, the structure of the bibliography was often modified, with more specific subsections being added for major topics showing particularly vigorous growth, and other organizational modifications being made in an attempt to improve usability.

There were several other major changes to the bibliography:

• In version 21 (5/24/96), the HTML page hierarchy was flattened and links to subsections with three-digit numbers were integrated into the table of contents on the main bibliography page.

• In version 22 (6/11/96), a search capability was added using the search engine of an O'Reilly WebSite server (this was removed in the final archival version due to concern about how long the utilized search engine would be available).

• In version 23 (6/25/96), the related electronic resources section had grown large enough that it was eliminated as a single section. Instead, each bibliography section now had its own related resources subsection (e.g., see the "2.2.4 Related Electronic Resources" subsection for "2.2 Electronic Books and Texts").

On 10/25/96, the final version of the HTML version of the bibliography (version 26) was published.

Given the growing size and complexity of the bibliography, its further development would have been hampered by continued use of an article format, so I obtained the permission of Robin N. Downes, then Director of the UH Libraries, to publish it as an electronic book. Just as the PACS Review bibliography had stretched the traditional model of an "article" by allowing author updates, the proposed electronic book would challenge the traditional model of a "book" by shortening the time between editions from years to weeks or months.

I revised, expanded, and redesigned the "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" to create the first version of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, which was published on 10/25/96.

Since the HTML version of the bibliography was a series of linked Web pages, there was no quick way to print the entire bibliography. Another problem was that, given the state of the evolution of the Internet, overseas users could sometimes experience significant response-time delays, which made it tedious to browse all of the sections of the bibliography. Consequently, I decided to add a Microsoft Word version of the bibliography that was designed to be a printed document and allowed users to retrieve a single file. The Word file was made available in version two (11/15/96) of the bibliography. To deal with the issue that not all users had Word, I added an Adobe Acrobat file that could be utilized with Adobe's free reader in version three (12/17/96) of the bibliography.

Of course, publishing the bibliography in three formats made the production of each new version more complex and time consuming. The creation of the Acrobat file from the Word file was not as effortless as I had thought it would be. The formatting of the Word document had to be very precise to properly generate an Acrobat file, and it made a difference what Acrobat tool was used for the conversion process. Unlike the Acrobat PDFWriter program that was initially used, the Acrobat Distiller program created files that faithfully replicated the pagination of the Word document.

There was also the issue of how to minimize the effort involved in creating the Word/Acrobat and the HTML versions of the bibliography. After experimenting with various strategies, I decided that simply cutting and pasting references from Word to my HTML editor, restructuring the reference link information (if present), and then hand tagging the references was the most effective technique for producing the bibliography's HTML-section files. Given the labor involved in maintaining multiple versions, I decided to keep the Word and Acrobat versions simple, and to limit supplemental information, such as lists of related electronic resources, to the HTML version.

As in the prior bibliography, there was a series of incremental changes to improve usability:

• In version six (3/19/97), separate "Table of Contents" and "Search the Bibliography" sections were created.
• In version 12 (9/16/97), related electronic resources, which had previously been integrated into each section as a subsection (e.g., see the "Table of Contents" for version 11) was moved to its own subdocument, called "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources," and links to other relevant bibliography sections were added to the bottom of many sections (e.g., see the "1 Economics Issues" section).
• In version 14 (11/26/97), the search engine was changed from WebSite to SWISH-E.
• In version 20 (7/22/98), a JavaScript navigation window was added.
• In version 34 (12/1/2000), the site design was significantly changed to improve its appearance and its navigation capabilities. There was special emphasis on the "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources" section.
• In version 36 (4/20/2001), links to appropriate "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources" sections were included at the bottom of many bibliography sections (e.g., see the "4 General Works" section).
• In version 38 (8/3/2001), a frequently updated "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog" section was added that listed new references and resources.

As the "Table of Contents" from version 38 (8/3/2001) illustrates, the section structure of the bibliography has remained relatively stable as the bibliography evolved from its first version: two sections were added ("5.2 Legal Issues: License Agreements" and "8.1 Publisher Issues: Electronic Commerce/Copyright Systems"), two were renamed ("6.1 Library Issues: Cataloging, Identifiers, and Metadata"; and "6.4 Library Issues: Information Conversion, Integrity, and Preservation"), and, as previously noted, the related resources sections were reorganized and a Weblog was added.

Utilization of SEPB

To prepare utilization data, the University of Houston Libraries' monthly Web log files for the period October 1996 to December 2000 were concatenated into annual cumulations; access records for SEPB were extracted from each annual Web log cumulation file; and the annual SEPB logs created by this process were cumulated into a total-use log file for the evaluation period. Log entries for the CGI Perl script used to support searching (which show specific search keys) were not extracted or evaluated; however, entries for the Web page used for initiating searching were included in the analysis.

The Analog program (http://analog.cx), written by Stephen Turner of the University of Cambridge Statistical Laboratory, was employed to analyze the logs. Analog reports tally successful requests (HTTP status codes 2xx and 304). File request totals include all bibliography files. Page request totals include Adobe Acrobat, HTML, and Microsoft Word files, but exclude two graphics files (a program switch was used to include Acrobat and Word files in the page counts).

Use By Year

Use of the bibliography has grown steadily since its initial publication as measured by the number of file and page requests. Table 1 presents an analysis of annual log data, showing file and page requests by year from 1996 to 2000.

File requests increased by 136,338 from 1996 (a partial year) to 1997, by 74,004 from 1997 to 1998, by 24,268 from 1998 to 1999, and by 62,809 from 1999 to 2000. Page requests increased by 95,022 from 1996 to 1997, by 40,784 from 1997 to 1998, by 20,095 from 1998 to 1999, and by 44,596 from 1999 to 2000.

Table 2 presents an analysis of consolidated log entries for the 1996 to 2000 period.

Use by Host Computer

Users are not individually identified in the log files; however, the host computers that they utilize are. Some host computers may have a single user, while others may have many users. Table 3 presents an analysis of the number unique host computers served for each year from 1996 to 2000.

The number of host computers served increased by 24,884 from 1996 (a partial year) to 1997, by 9,985 from 1997 to 1998, by 3,969 from 1998 to 1999, and by 8,695 from 1999 to 2000.

Analysis of consolidated log entries for the 1996 to 2000 period indicates that 153,980 host computers were served. This figure is lower than a summation of the annual totals in Table 3 by 13,524, which suggests that some host computers accessed the bibliography in multiple years.

Use of SEPB Files

Table 4 presents SEPB files ranked by number of requests during the 1996 to 2000 period. [6]

The top ten file requests include the SEPB home page, the home page's graphic files, the table of contents page, the search page, the Acrobat file, the resources directory page, the electronic serials resources directory page, the digital library bibliography page, and the Word file.

Use By Domain

SEPB is used worldwide. During the 1996 to 2000 period, requests were received from 151 domains. Since the domain could not be determined for 222,670 requests (22.78% of file requests), the information presented in this section suggests the likely pattern of domain use, but it is not definitive.

Table 5 presents a ranking of domains that requested more than 1,000 files during the 1996 to 2000 period.

Conclusion

From the first PACS Review bibliography to the present one, my goal has been to provide a selective bibliography, not a comprehensive one. I have evaluated articles and other works about electronic publishing and chosen those that, in my opinion, were worth reading. In an attempt to serve a broad readership well, I have not tended to include highly technical or specialized works. I have been more generous in my evaluation of works early in the development cycle of a new technology, and more selective as that technology became well established. As they became less useful, I have removed some works from the bibliography. Although the bibliography covers many topics, I have emphasized those that are most directly related to electronic publications that are of special interest to academic libraries, such as electronic journals, and those that deal with critical issues that will shape the future of scholarly publishing.

Over time, the bibliography has gradually evolved into a scholarly electronic publishing "gateway." The first step in this direction was the inclusion of the section for related electronic resources. When this section became too large, it was first broken up into subsections under each major subject section, and then it was reestablished as a separate section with its own subject-specific subsections. The addition of a Weblog provided more timely access to new references and resources, some of which would never be included in other bibliography sections. This evolution was an unplanned but natural extension of the bibliography's information-finding function that was made possible by the Web's powerful linking capabilities.

What next? After more than a decade of publishing scholarly works electronically on the Internet, I can confidently predict that the future is unpredictable. But, as long as it is published, the bibliography will continue to cover an ever-changing body of relevant literature, to adapt its structure, and to selectively incorporate the use of new publishing tools.

Charles W. Bailey, Jr. is the Assistant Dean for Systems at the University of Houston Libraries. He has over 25 years of experience as a library computer specialist, a media librarian, and a technical writer. Since 1989, he has participated in a variety of electronic publishing projects on the Internet. He established and moderated the PACS-L mailing list. He founded and edited The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, which was a refereed electronic journal. He established and coedited Public-Access Computer Systems News, which was an electronic newsletter. In 1993, Mr. Bailey won the first LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication for Continuing Education in Library and Information Science for his electronic publishing efforts. He holds master's degrees in information and library science and instructional media and technology. Further information is available at http://info.lib.uh.edu/cwb/bailey.htm.

Notes

1. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (Houston: University of Houston Libraries, 1996-2001): http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html. (Archive available at http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/sepa.htm.)

2. For further information about the PACS Review, see: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., "Electronic (Online) Publishing in Action . . . The Public-Access Computer Systems Review and Other Electronic Serials," ONLINE 15 (January 1991): 28-35; and Pat Ensor and Thomas Wilson, "Public-Access Computer Systems Review: Testing the Promise," The Journal of Electronic Publishing 3, no. 1 (1997).

3. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., "Electronic Publishing on Networks: A Selective Bibliography of Recent Works," The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 3, no. 2 (1992): 13-20, http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v3/n2/bailey.3n2.

4. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., "Electronic Publishing on Networks: Part II of a Selective Bibliography," The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 5, no. 2 (1994): 5-14, http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v5/n2/bailey.5n2.

5. Charles W. Bailey, Jr., "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography," The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 6, no. 1 (1995): 5-21, http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n1/bail6n1.html. (Archive available at http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/netbib.htm.)

6. Table 4 does not show 210 proxy requests for bibliography files or 9 requests for a test file. The number of requests for graphics files is less than those for the bibliography home page because some users turn off the display of graphics in their Web browsers. Also, the photograph of Paul Evan Peters was not added until version 10 (7/11/97). The "Preprints" section was first introduced in version 34 (12/1/2000), and, consequently, it has a very low request count. Bibliography sections that existed in 2000 are listed by the name used in version 34 (the last version published in that year) and have links to that version. Related electronic resources sections that were discontinued because of bibliography reorganization have links to version 11, the last version in which they appeared. The discontinued "Trailblazers" section has a link to version 18, the last version in which it appeared.

Copyright 2001 by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Links from this article:

SEBP links

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html

Version 1 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/01/sepb.html

Version 2 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/02/sepb.html

Version 2: Microsoft Word file http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/02/sepb.doc

Version 3 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/03/sepb.html

Version 3: Adobe PDF file http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/03/sepb.pdf

Version 6 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/06/sepb.html

Version 6: "Search" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/06/search.htm

Version 6: "Table of Contents" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/06/toc.htm

Version 11: "Table of Contents" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/toc.htm

Version 11: "2.4 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/brel.htm

Version 11: "3.6 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/srel.htm

Version 11: "4.1 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/grel.htm

Version 11: "5.4 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/lrel.htm

Version 11: "6.5 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/lbrel.htm

Version 11: "8.2 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/11/prel.htm

Version 12 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/12/sepb.html

Version 12: "1 Economic Issues http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/12/economic.htm

Version 12: "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/12/sepr.htm

Version 14 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/14/sepb.html

Version 18: "Trailblazers" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/18/rtrail.htm

Version 20 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/20/sepb.html

Version 34 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sepb.html

Version 34: Acrobat PDF file http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sepb.pdf

Version 34: Microsoft Word file http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sepb.doc

Version 34: "Appendix A. Related Bibliographies" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/related.htm

Version 34: "Appendix B. About the Author" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/about.htm

Version 34: "Cataloging, Identifiers, and Metadata" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rcat.htm

Version 34: "Digital Libraries" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rdiglib.htm

Version 34: "Electronic Books and Texts" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rebook.htm

Version 34: "Electronic Serials" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/reser.htm

Version 34: "General Electronic Publishing" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rgen.htm

Version 34: "Images" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rimage.htm

Version 34: "Legal" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rlegal.htm

Version 34: "Preprints" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rpre.htm

Version 34: "Preservation" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rpres.htm

Version 34: "Publishers" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rpub.htm

Version 34: "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sepr.htm

Version 34: "Search" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/search.htm

Version 34: "SGML and Related Standards" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/rsgml.htm

Version 34: "Table of Contents" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/toc.htm

Version 34: "1 Economic Issues" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/economic.htm

Version 34: "2.1 Electronic Books and Texts: Case Studies and History" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/bcase.htm

Version 34: "2.2 Electronic Books and Texts: General Works" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/bgen.htm

Version 34: "2.3 Electronic Books and Texts: Library Issues" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/blibrary.htm

Version 34: "3.1 Electronic Serials: Case Studies and History" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/scase.htm

Version 34: "3.2 Electronic Serials: Critiques" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/scritiq.htm

Version 34: "3.3 Electronic Serials: Electronic Distribution of Printed Journals" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sdist.htm

Version 34: "3.4 Electronic Serials: General Works" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sgen.htm

Version 34: "3.5 Electronic Serials: Library Issues" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/slibrary.htm

Version 34: "3.6 Electronic Serials: Research" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/sres.htm

Version 34: "4 General Works" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/general.htm

Version 34: "5.1 Legal Issues: Intellectual Property Rights" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/lcopyr.htm

Version 34: "5.2 Legal Issues: License Agreements" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/llicense.htm

Version 34: "5.3 Legal Issues: Other Legal Issues" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/lother.htm

Version 34: "6.1 Library Issues: Cataloging, Identifiers, and Metadata" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/lbcat.htm

Version 34: "6.2 Library Issues: Digital Libraries" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/lbdiglib.htm

Version 34: "6.3 Library Issues: General Works" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/lbgen.htm

Version 34: "6.4 Library Issues: Information Conversion, Integrity, and Preservation" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/lbinteg.htm

Version 34: "7 New Publishing Models" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/models.htm

Version 34: "8 Publisher Issues" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/publish.htm

Version 34: "8.1 Publisher Issues: Electronic Commerce/Copyright Systems" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/34/pcomm.htm

Version 36 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/36/sepb.html

Version 36: "4 General Works" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/36/general.htm

Version 38 http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/38/sepb.html

Version 38: "Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/38/sepw.htm

Version 38: "Table of Contents" http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/38/toc.htm

PACS Review links

The Public-Access Computer Systems Review http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/pacsrev.html

"Electronic Publishing on Networks: A Selective Bibliography of Recent Works" http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v3/n2/bailey.3n2

"Electronic Publishing on Networks: Part II of a Selective Bibliography" http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v5/n2/bailey.5n2

Issue Index (link anchored to first issue) http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/backvol.htm#v1n1

"Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" Version 1 http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/01/bail6n1.htm

Version 1: ASCII version (not updated) http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n1/bailey.6n1

Version 1: "2.4 Electronic Serials" http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/01/serials.htm

Version 1: "2.11 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/01/related.htm

Version 21 http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/21/bail6n1.htm

Version 22 http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/22/bail6n1.htm

Version 23 http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/23/bail6n1.htm

Version 23: "2.2.4 Related Electronic Resources" http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/netbib/23/brel.htm

Version 26 http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v6/n1/bail6n1.html

PACS-L link

http://info.lib.uh.edu/pacsl.html

PACS-P link

http://info.lib.uh.edu/pacsp.html