A Decade of DTDs and SGML in Scholarly Publishing: What Have We learned?

With the growth of computer use, the invention of the World Wide Web, and the increased pace of scientific research, publishers realized that making research available electronically was vital to both researchers as well as their own business interests. Over the past decade, scholarly publishers have designed DTDs and implemented SGML systems. Despite efforts to create a common DTD for scholarly publishing, publishers have developed proprietary DTDs and SGML implementations that diverge from efforts toward standardization on a single DTD because publishers required solutions that best suited their business requirements. The recognition that individual organizations within an industry segment may have unique business requirements is important for all parties involved in the design and implementation of SGML systems, especially those who work on content or data interchange projects. We examine differences between DTDs and SGML of ten publishers, explore some reasons for these differences, and discuss issues that are raised by these differences, especially when content must be transformed from one proprietary DTD to another. Rendered by www.RenderX.com A Decade of DTDs and SGML in Scholarly Publishing What Have We learned? Table of