\title{Electronic Publishing -- Out of the Playpen} \noindent The third annual conference of the BCS Electronic Publishing Specialist Group took place at Exeter College, Oxford on 21--22nd March. It was a stimulating event. This two-day meeting must be one of the best amongst many that bring together people with varied backgrounds to take a wide look at what is happening in the application of computer-based techniques to the dissemination of information. An awareness that information becomes knowledge only through concern by authors, editors, producers and/or publishers for methods was apparent in Oxford; philosophical issues and a historical perspective were perhaps encouraged amongst the Dreaming Spires. Fine detail was not overlooked however. Formal sessions, and the equally important times in between, provided face-to-face communications for over fifty highly motivated delegates from all levels in many areas of information handling. The environment wherever delegates assembled could be said to be laden with valuable interchanges which not only focused on all aspects of electronic page make-up, which is the solid base of the Group's interests, but also encompassed commercial realities and futurology. One comment overheard that could be said to add a perspective (or two?) concerned the desirability or otherwise of slanting the familiar male\slash female symbols in italic typefaces in an \SGML\ environment! Aside from such detail, Electronic Publishing specialists must always be concerned with the hardware and software employed as well as the continuing process of standardisation, usability and ever wider applications. Presentations on diverse topics within one meeting in this subject can always be brought into focus by very interesting speakers and this meeting excelled in this too; throughout, the sub-theme of `coping with change' was addressed. The conference was attended by delegates from a variety of organisations, including universities, publishers, the Finnish State Computer Centre, IBM, DEC and the Bible Society. The first (pre-conference) session, especially for those arriving on the Wednesday evening, entitled {\sl Choosing a Typeface} was given by Paul Luna, Head of Art and Design, Arts \& Reference Division, Oxford University Press. At the frontiers of innovation in a 500-year old organisation, Paul re-designed the range of Oxford Dictionaries in Monotype Nimrod from 1984, designed the Oxford Shakespeare Volumes in 1986, and the Revised English Bible in 1990. His talk focused on choosing typefaces for the redesigned University Gazette and he provided a great deal of insight into why a typeface does (or does not look) right in a particular context. The first full day started with a welcome address by Professor Sir Roger Elliott, Chief Executive of Oxford University Press. A theoretical physicist, Sir Roger noted that three other speakers shared his background. By touching upon aspects of intellectual property protection and fair reward to publishers for adding value to information, this eminent scientist set the scene for all speakers, in suitably authoritative style and in the context of OUP's own wide ranging electronic publishing achievements. Delegates enjoyed further opportunity to meet several of OUP's electronic publishing specialists and see software and CD-ROM based products at a sherry party sponsored by `The Press' before the conference dinner on the same evening. Following the opening address, Eric van Herwijnen gave his views on {\sl \SGML\ in the Real World} . Eric is from CERN, Geneva, where he is the head of text processing and is responsible for scientific document production (CERN publishes 1000 documents a year). By answering the questions `what is?, who uses? and how to start, with \SGML', this speaker took the assembled experts into the library of the future from which users select on-line and print the page as they perceive a need for it. The recently much enlarged Elsevier Science Publishers would be expected to have views on this concept, and Nico Poppelier from that company then gave a presentation on {\sl \SGML\ and \TeX\ in Scientific Publishing} from his standpoint of author submission of manuscripts using \TeX\ and conversion of it and word-processing formats to and from \SGML. \TeX ies may have been surprised and pleased by the prominence given to \TeX\ in these first three presentations. It may be no coincidence that all three are (or were) physicists. Barbara Lloyd, a publishing consultant with DEC, talked directly about {\sl Electronic Publishing Out of the Playpen} from the large user systems viewpoint. It was good to learn that DEC practice what they preach, even to the extent of putting user manuals on CD-ROM. An exploration of the possibilities of significantly improving communication by applying latest technology included an intriguing `book-reader' in `windows'. The next speaker was Edward James, Lecturer and Consultant in Educational Computing at Imperial College, (also a Director of Juniper Systems Partnership Ltd). In his talk {\sl Publishing without Paper} he considered environmental and other failings of existing paper-based publishing methods, and went on to describe (and sell a sampler for \quid1.00) his computer package which enables authors who are inexperienced in computing to add value to their paperless publications. His `paper' paper, lacking the hypertext, was also given out. The last talk of the first day was given by a first-class public speaker, Tony Feldman, whose {\sl The Electronic Book Arrives} examined the origins and rapid growth of hand-held electronic reference publishing (palmtop computers), and assessed the impact of these devices on traditional publishing and looked ahead to the first electronic books on optical disk. The Japanese are coming! The dinner in Hall was all that such an occasion should be, good food, wine and company with a sparkling (despite travelling from the Gulf War that very day) speaker -- Michael Bywater, who writes for Punch and MacUser. The guest's journalistic skills were evident throughout his very amusing and poignant speech, as well as in his write-up of the event in MacUser (5~April 1991, p.~106). Delegates were made fully aware of the EP expert's responsibility by the punchline `the history of culture is the history of publishing'. The first presentation on Friday was by Jacques Andr\'e of INRIA/IRISA of the University of Rennes, one of the initiators of the DIDOT project to coordinate training in numerical typography. Jacques' talk on {\sl The DIDOT Project and Digital Typography in Europe} focused on the state of the art of digital typography, explaining the need to bring together type designers and computer people, as well as giving some fascinating examples of what you can do with typefaces if you know how to manipulate \PS\ (and if you want to!). Following this, Paul Bacsich of the Open University, where he is Senior Project Manager in Information Technology and Head of the Electronic Media Research Group, spoke about {\sl An Encyclopaedia of European Characters}, speaking of the need to clarify what exactly a character was. He defined eleven species including Roman letters, punctuation, maths and scientific, modern Greek as well as the more familiar characters, and discussed some of the problems involved in creating the encyclopaedia and in coding and accessing the characters. {\sl Achieving the Automatic, the Invisible, Hyphen} was discussed by Ronald McIntosh of Computer Hyphenation Ltd. Ronald, together with David Fawthrop, has developed the Hyphenologist program which allows proper word division in 40 languages. In the past British hyphenation has generally been based on etymology, but is now mainly following the US practice of using the phonetic method. Ronald explained how the various algorithms work, with extensive examples. The last presentation of the conference was given by Ali Assam of Diwan. Talking about {\sl Distributed Newspaper Publishing} he explained how in 1988 Diwan became the system integrator for the world's first broadsheet to be produced, edited and remotely printed using microcomputers, and discussed the application of Diwan's pre-press and information management system products using low cost computer and communications technology. The use of \PS\ as a medium for transmitting made-up pages around the world to be printed in many remote sites was yet another reminder of how developing technology makes information more accessible. Altogether a most useful and interesting conference, held in beautiful surroundings. \author{Peter Ashby and Anna Duckworth}