Services and architectures for electronic publishing

Abstract

We describe changes that are occurring in electronic publishing as a result of the emergence of networked computing. Networks facilitate the exchange of information, but the changes will be far more profound than a simple substitution of media. As new capabilities and new challenges arise, there are corresponding new services that must be developed or else electronic publishing will not meet the needs of the public. After discussing these services, we describe architectures that can be used to implement them. These architectures respond to the issues of performance, scalability, security, and economics that must be addressed before electronic publishing will blossom. We illustrate how current architectures support existing services, enhancements offered by multi-tier servers, and extensions of these architectures to more symmetric models such as the broker model. Many of these concepts are being pursued by the IBM Digital Library family of products.