# /research/publications/archive/releases/1995-01-19.htm

originally: http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/archive/releases/1995-01-19.htm

# OCLC Electronic Journals Online system adding World Wide Web access

DUBLIN, Ohio, Jan 19, 1995--OCLC has designed a World Wide Web interface for the OCLC Electronic Journals Online system that will make subscriber access to journals possible from multiple computer platforms using NCSA Mosaic software.

Using the Mosaic software, IBM PC, Macintosh and UNIX users have access to the full text, color and halftone images, graphics, complex equations and tables available in OCLC Electronic Journals Online. The Electronic Journals Online system for IBM PC users is available through Guidon, OCLC's Windows-based graphical user interface.

Applied Physics Letters Online, the electronic version of the weekly journal published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), is the first of the OCLC Electronic Journals Online to be available through the Web. Other OCLC Electronic Journals Online will be available on the Web over the course of 1995.

Applied Physics Letters Online is now available to subscribers through the "On Ramp to OCLC Services" at the OCLC Home Page, http://www.oclc.org/ on the World Wide Web.

"I firmly believe that Mosaic and other Web browsers represent a revolution in communication technology," said Peggy Judd, AIP director of information technology. "Publishing Applied Physics Letters Online, the first physics journal to be fully accessible via the Web and Mosaic, clearly establishes the American Institute of Physics as a significant electronic publisher and marks its participation in this important new way of communicating with the world-wide scientific community."

"OCLC's goal is to provide convenient, world-wide access to important scholarly journals via the user's choice of a variety of graphical interfaces and platforms," said Andrea Keyhani, manager, OCLC electronic publishing.

The World Wide Web interface for Electronic Journals Online was developed by the OCLC office of research. According to Stuart Weibel, OCLC senior research scientist, there were two major problems to overcome to make Web-based scholarly journal access possible.

"We developed an automated process to translate from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) to HyperText Markup Language (HTML), and to generate the special characters necessary for scholarly typography," said Dr. Weibel. "We developed a specialized server that maintains session context for a user, which does not happen in a normal Web transaction. By doing this, we have laid the foundation for fully Z39.50-compliant access to full text and reference database services."

"OCLC's Electronic Journals Online is the first commercial system to offer these advanced capabilities in a World Wide Web product," said Dr. Weibel.

"Development of the World Wide Web interface is an evolving process," said Ms. Keyhani. "OCLC continues to study ways to improve the interface, and continues work with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Internet Engineering Task Force working group on HTML to improve the HTML standard itself."

A demonstration of the OCLC Electronic Journals Online service will soon be available through the World Wide Web.

To obtain a current list of EJO-compatible browsers and their EJO-required settings, use:

- OCLC Reference Services Home Page. Go to http://www.ref.oclc.org:2000.
- Anonymous FTP. Enter this command: ftp ftp.rsch.oclc.org. Change to this directory: /pub/documentation/ejo/.
- E-mail. Send this message: get ejo browsers; to this Internet e-mail address: listproc@oclc.org.