WEB to Display CPMT Transactions: Going
Treeless
Your CPMT has decided to add our three Transactions to the IEEE
OPeRA web sight. OPeRA stands for "On-line Periodicals and
Research Area. Some of you have been sampling the media by logging
in at [http://opera.ieee.org/opdemo/]. Already more than 40 of
the IEEE Transactions are posted there plus the "Proceedings
of the IEEE".
For a small expense the transactions for the last five years will
also soon become available at this sight. Since the last five
years have seen the IEEE put everything into SGML format it is
not expensive to convert to PDF format so the files can be easily
transmitted to members. By putting our publications on OPeRA,
all CPMT members have the right to access the site. Depending
on relationships between the various societies, other society
material will be available; the amount will depend on the growing
number of trades made.
So what do you use this new capability for? Let’s say you
have just been assigned a project that needs integrated passive
components to fit in the small intended ceramic substrate. Rather
than paging through many old copies in the library, you will be
able to do quick word searches: "integrated passives"
AND "ceramic substrates", for example. You can do this
search in your pajamas at 2 AM from your home computer over phone
lines.
To date the new transaction papers are posted on OPeRA the same
day they are mailed out to members. The initial decision is to
limit access to CPMT members that are in fact subscribing to paper
copies of the transactions. In this way the member can archive
the paper copies and have them even if they quit the Society.
As more members develop confidence in the web access approach,
we may offer "web-only" subscriptions. This could potentially
save a lot of printing and mailing costs but it is not clear how
to make sure you always had access to those issues you subscribed
to long after you have quit the Society. That is, does IEEE become
your attic?
No one knows the best way to administrate this new capability.
How many years to leave on-line? Should CPMT members be allowed
to scan all Division I Transactions (EDS, LEOS, Circuits and Devices)?
Come join your fellow members on-line and see what makes sense
to you. Within the next 5 years the new publication process will
be set, let’s make sure that CPMT give timely input during
this transition period.