Editor’s column: Synoptic publishing ANDERS MARTINSSON

Martinsson, A. 1977 07 15: Editor’s column: Synoptic publishing. Lerhaia, Vol. 10, pp. 263-

The future of the paper-based scientific journal seems to lie in synoptic publishing. Synoptic publishing is a system the chief components of which are the synoptic article and the back-up structure. The synoptic article is not new in essence - for many decades there has been development towards greater selectivity of material within articles and towards synoptic expression. The back-up structure, however, has not been developed to any appreciable extent. There are examples of back-up structures in the form of special microfiche serials distributed among libraries and of full texts in miniprint appended to the synoptic article. Adequate full-text depositories (‘open files’), however, are poorly developed and can be instituted only upon agreement far above the level of ordinary research institutions. The back-up material, largely camera-ready copy, needs strict editing as early as the author’s level. Acceptance for deposition should follow the norms of acceptance for publication, with the assistance of referees. Anders Marrinsson, Editor of Lerhaia, Department of Palaeobiology. Box 564. S-751 22 Uppsala. Sweden; 6 f h May, 1977.

265. 0.40. ISSN 0024-1 164.

The future of the scientific journal of the type you are now reading, in which the document carrier is paper, which can be browsed and read even in trains and planes and in bed, lies in synoptic publishing. This term has only recently been introduced, but the readers of Lethaia will recognize the pragmatic philosophy behind it: scientific publication is motivated by the need for making results universally available to great numbers of largely unknown readers. The fact that the base data and details of investigation need to be checked by one, two or five persons during the life-time of the report material does not motivate their publica- tion, but they should be available and re- trievable.

Synoptic publishing is a system in which the synoptic article is supplemented by a back-up structure. The synoptic article contains what the vast majority of readers, including most specialists, need to know for their activities. I t makes reference to the back-up structure that contains the details to be checked by scientists who continue to research in the field o r who deal in a responsible way with the practical application of the results.

Publishing in this way means publicizing the existence of scientific reports rather than pub- lishing them. I t also means that the journal of

the future will come much closer to what is now the secondary journal, and that the back- up structure will take the place of the primary journal.

The synoptic article Publishing has become increasingly selective in recent decades, and much detailed text and numerical data have had to remain in what could have been organized as a back-up struc- ture. The trend towards the synoptic article is certainly not new and has come about because the research explosion is producing more re- sults than we can handle and indeed afford in the form of less selective articles of the old type. Shrinking an article to its ideal briefness, however, requires the organization of a back-up structure for accommodating increasingly im- portant material, closer to the nucleus of the scientific message.

How, then, does a synoptic article look? The answer is very simple - just like any article in Lethaia, reduced to a few pages, with a refer- ence to the back-up structure in which the full text is available. I t has an article-head with title, author’s name and address, bibliographical identification (biblid), back-up structure iden- tification and key-words, followed by a sum-

264 Editor’s column LETHAIA 10 (1977)

mary text to supplement the abstract, illustrated by some key illustrations. Much or all of the synoptic text can be included in extended captions to these illustrations.

What we arc aiming at, then, is a synoptic article of flexible size, depending very largely on the character of the investigation and the material in the back-up structure. If an article cannot be made comprehensible on three pages but on six, it should comprise six pages.

The models that have been proposed are generally more rigid. This is natural in subjects which produce large numbers of short nomo- thetic papers (Martinsson 1969), physics and chemistry for example. Chemistry literature is increasing by 375,000 titles a year; it is within this field that the most far-reaching efforts have been made, by Dr. Helmut Grunewald in Berlin, to build up a full system of synoptic publication. The first proposal (cf. Grunewald 1971) limited the synoptic article to two A5 pages, the first of which was occupied by the article-head material and the second by key extracts from the full text (in contrast to the arrangement in Lethaia, the article-head ma- terial was placed in frames and in foot-notes from the title).

We do not have to be that rigid. Even sys- tematic biology and palaeontology will have to adapt to synoptic publication, but the rules of biological nomenclature impose minimum re- quirements as to what has to be included in a publication. However, since most descriptive pa!aeontology is synthesized in illustrations, one could well imagine future publications in this field as consisting of one- or even half-page packages in which figures are supplemented by captions containing the compulsory data and the necessary pointers to details in the figures. It is a step in this direction that Sylvester- Bradley has taken in his ‘new palaeontography’ (1973).

The back-up structure In contrast to the synoptic article that has been underway for decades and for which a medium is available in the conventional (or micro-fiche) journal, the other primary component in the system has hardly been developed at all.

The full-text depository. - When authors began to turn increasingly synoptic in their articles, it generally meant that they kept their raw and supplementary data in their own files, possibly

retrievable in their life-time. Scientists are bad archivists. Their research institutions are not much better. They lack the educated staff and efficient service for making the texts available and are too small and de-centralized units. Larger ‘full-text depositories’ and ‘open files’ are in existence (e.g. the British Library and the U.S. depositories for doctoral theses) but have not been organized in whole or part as a component in a system of synoptic publishing. In small subjects and small countries the centralized full-text depository is probably the only feasible back-up structure, but it has to be organized and equipped for efficient avail- ability, which is hardly the case anywhere.

The back-up journal. - Dr. Grunewald, ex- tremely critical of the depository as a back-up structure, has introduced the back-up journal, manifest internationally in the Journal of Chemical Research (first issue in January, 1977). The synoptic journal on paper is moti- vated among individual subscribers, and the back-up journal on microfiche is marketed among libraries, thus providing immediate accessibility close to every research centre. I t is uncertain how many subjects in addition to chemistry are large enough, or how many institutions have the means, to produce and distribute a multiplied back-up structure to supplement the synoptic journal.

The appended back-up structure in miniprint. - One variety of the preceding solution is the miniprint journal, possibly an ephemerid in publishing but not without advantages. The miniprint text on paper is too small for continuous reading but not for picking out relevant information with, or even without, magnifying devices. In Landscape Planning, Dr. Arie A. Manten of the Elsevier Scientific Pub- lishing Company has made an experiment with a synoptic article in more professional typog- raphy, supplemented in the same journal with a back-up text in miniprint from the author’s camera-ready copy (cf. Manten 1976; Jones, Ady & Gray 1976). In this way type-setting is eliminated, and printing-costs and number of pages (bulk and weight) for the back-up text are quartered as compared with camera-ready copy reduced to the type area of the journal. The back-up text is easily readable in small portions (but the accompanying figures are unattractive in their reproduced state).

LETHAIA 10 (1977) Synoptic publishing 265

This system contains both components of the preceding solution, but in one package and with the same recipients. I t could not be more within reach of the user.

Deposited or published back-up structure. - We end up with the question of whether the back- up structure should be retrievably deposited or published. National depositories have to be paid for by the tax-payers and/or users’ fees; subject-defined depositories presumably by spe- cialists’ organizations and users’ fees for copying services; back-up microfiche journals by a variety of library funders (states, cities, institutions and societies); and appended micro- print back-up by the usual spectrum of sub- scribers to a primary journal. The develop- ment seems to depend largely on political decisions and on conventions at national and international level. Expenses saved by the pub- lications that relieve themselves of the back-up material reappear, although certainly in re- duced proportions, in libraries and archives.

The document carrier of the deposited back- up structure may vary between paper, micro- forms and tapes. All types of back-up struc- tures can be adapted to, or connected with, the storage and retrieval systems of modem documentation.

In one respect the simplest type of deposition compensates greatly for the restrictions im- posed on the synoptic article. I n the idio- graphic sciences deposited back-up material will largely be used directly by visitors. Within the limits of practical storage in standardized units it will be possible to supply not only more detailed texts than at present but also illustrations in quantities, sizes, photographic detail and colours to an extent that no journal editor could dream of accepting.

Editing back-up structures. - It is a serious mistake to believe that material referred to back-up structures relieves us from preparing and editing our manuscripts and illustrations with great care. On the contrary, the require- ments will be stricter than for publication, and this certainly concerns the deposited material as much as the published. The text will be reproduced in microform or reprographically as it leaves the author, and at this level the editing has to take place. There are no inter- mediate stages at which deficiencies in the manuscript can still be eliminated, such as

type-setting and proof-reading. The size and arrangement of each unit, including tables and illustrations, will have to be planned to be placed under a standard-set camera. As far as microfiche is concerned, such units have to be read or examined one by one - parallel reading in two or more places (e.g. main text, plates and explanations) is not possible, and that has to be taken into account by the editing author. Scientific editing, technical evaluation and ref- ereeing will remain in the picture, however - acceptance for deposition should follow re- quirements comparable to those of acceptance for publication.

Policy in Lethaia Awaiting the development of more perfect back-up structures, Lethaia will accept synoptic articles provided with an indication after the article biblid (Martinsson 1974:4) of a full-text deposition in an institution of satisfactory permanence and with adequate services for the availability of the material. We hope that in this way the essential results in theses and reports that are not written for publication, and in monographs that have to wait unduly long for it, will find an easier and quicker way to the user. This is just a logical develop- ment of possibilities - not much used - that have been offered since the foundation of Lethaia: although consistently avoiding typical duplication of publication, we have been open to the timely publication of well-illustrated summary articles on results buried in texts in national languages or in monographs that can- not be expected to be properly distributed among the individual users. They are also a kind of back-up structure.

References Griinewald, H. 1971: European Chemical Reports. Inf .

Council Sci. Unions Abslracring Board (ICSU AB), Proc. Full Board Meeting. July 1971. OrlPans. France, 155-159.

Jones, G. R., Ady, J. & Gray, B. A. 1976: Scenic and recreation highway study for the State of Washing- ton. Landscape Planning 3, 151-302.

Manten, A. A. 1976: Editorial: Experiment in synopsis publishing. Landscape Planning 3, 147-150.

Martinsson, A. 1969: Publishing in the geological sciences. Lerhaia 2. 73-86.

Martinsson, A. 1974: Changing our package. Lerhaia 7, 1-4.

Sylvester-Bradley, P. C. 1973: The new palaeontog- raphy. Srereo-A rlas of Osrracod[e] Shells 1.1. 1-4.