Proceedings on CD

[Rolph Payet]

Dear collegues

1. I would opt for a CD/Web-based version, as there is a lot of us out there
who could not afford to come to Bali.

2. We should also not forget, Adobe Acrobat which can compress documents (75
to 100 dpi) into printable format - available across a variety of platforms,
or even the old pkzip and other archiving software which can reduce CD-space
tremendously. I have never seen an 1 Mb scientific paper (20-30 pages),
unless it is a 50+ pg report or contains very high resolution or native
graphics. Coverting those graphics often reduces the file size considerably.

3. Authors should use compressed resampled JPEGs instead of TIFFs/BMP for
the pictures, and that should significantly reduce the size of pictures
without sacrificing legibility. Handy sharewares/web photo tools are now
available to do this. For technical diagrams, the picture/metafile format
 or a raster-based compressed image format) would be more practicable.

4. HTML ( one web page) can be used to index all the files on the CD-ROM,
which will also make searching and filing much easier. The webpage does not
need to be complicated with frames. Just one page ( in the oldest form of
HTML, which will contain a list ( grouped in categories) and with links to
those documents. Another page classified by author and/or country could be
developed. This webpage could then be online and also provide links to
downloadable files.

5. To reduce download times and ease conjestion, coral friends around the
world could host mirror sites for a limited period so that everyone can
download. I am sure people/Univeristies would be happy to help, for say six
months.

Hope this is useful.

regards


Rolph
----- Original Message -----
From: GJ Gast <gjgast at freeler.nl>
To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2000 6:20 PM
Subject: Proceedings on CD


> Dear all,
>
> Ove wrote:
> >
> > The only problem is that not all people will have access to good web
resources.
> > A CD with manuscripts could be burnt that might be offered to those
scientists
> > who do not have the benefit of fast Internet resources.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Ove
>
> I have in Bali coined the idea of printing and distributing the symposium
> proceedings on CD. Some advantages I see:
>
> 1. Printing costs of the paper version are about US$100,000 plus roughly
> US$20 on postage for each. A CD costs less than one dollar and postage is
> hardly more than a normal letter. With 1500 participants the paper version
> costs 130,000 and the CD version roughly 3000, an almost 98% reduction of
> the costs.
>
> 2. CD's are now 900 MB, undoubtably larger in 4 years. So a 1000 authors
> will have about 1 MB each for their paper. A paper can be written in any
> format the author wishes. MS Word obviously, but why not in HTML as a
> web page? Colours can be used, tables, graphs, pictures, models,
> simulations and data sets as long as it fits the set amount of disk space.
If
> the articles are burned on 2 CD's every author will have 2 MB. There is no
> limit.
>
> 3. Lay-out of the papers can be done by the authors, which means a
> tremendous reduction of the work load for the symposium proceedings
> editor. This allows the publication of the proceedings a few months after
the
> symposium rather than a few years.
>
> 4. In the proceedings of the Bali meeting only 400 papers out of over a
1000
> oral contributions will be selected for publications. There is no such
reduction
> necessary when working with CD's.
>
> 5. You can easily share your copy with your students or co-workers by
> placing it on the internal network or by simply burning copies.
>
> 6. Even in the developing countries computers with CD ROM players are
> common now. Everybody can use a CD.
>
> 7. If the structure of the CD is written in HTML the whole thing can
easily be
> made available through a webpage as well.
>
> My two cents. Cheers, GJ.
> ===============================================
> Dr. Gert Jan Gast
> Oostelijke Handelskade 31
> 1019BL Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
> Phone int 31 (0)20 4198607
> Please use <gjgast at freeler.nl> as primary address
> for large attachments. My permanent email address is
> <gjgast at dds.nl> . Please remove <gjgast at tropicbird.fol.nl>
> from your address book. It can't be used web-based and
> will stop some time in the future.
>