MTO Editor's Message (3/20/95)
WWW: The main Event!
Since the World-Wide Web (WWW) made its debut around three years
ago, the number of private, commercial, and non-commercial Web
sites has grown prodigiously to more than 10,000. One projection
puts the number at 40,000 sites by the end of this year (Internet
World, April 1995, p. 4). A survey of MTO subscribers last year
indicated that many were already using the Web, and some others
anticipated being able to use it soon. Though Web users and hopefuls were not in the majority at the time, presumably many more subscribers have by now begun to explore the Web with one of the several available "browsers" (Mosaic, Netscape, WinWeb, MacWe
b, Cello, and others).
Our First Steps
This issue of MTO (1.2) marks an initial step into the WWW arena,
by providing access to MTO items through the Web server that has
been established on the SMT Networking host, boethius. Those who
use the Web may acess MTO through the URL (Uniform Resource
Locator) http://societymusictheory.org/mto/index.html. The MTO
"page" has links to all the current and past MTO items. Those
who are interested may want to take a look at the boethius "page"
(http://societymusictheory.org/boethius.html), which includes
a link to the MTO page.
The Designers
The main people behind MTO's Web plunge are Robert Judd, MTO
Manager, and Christopher Pitchford, MTO Editorial Assistant,
who designed and developed the pages. We are indebted to Judd
and Pitchford for the many hours they have spent preparing MTO
for Web access.
Getting it Right...
Web users should keep in mind that our pages are still under
development. They have been tested as far as possible, but some
"bugs" may turn up as subscribers with different browsers try out
the URLs. Please be patient. To help us resolve problems and
improve our pages, please report difficulties and send suggestions
to Judd (mto-manager@societymusictheory.org).
Future Possibilities
In addition to allowing easier access to electronic texts, WWW
opens up the possibility of going far beyond plain text documents
through formatting in HTML, the HyperText Markup Language. With
HTML, documents can include special character formatting (e.g.
bold, italics, underlining, different sized fonts for titles and
headings), as well as paragraph formatting (e.g. centering, numbered
lists, block quotes). Further, HTML texts may include links to
other texts, graphical images, audio files, and even film clips,
potentially turning a text into a hypertextual multimedia
document. These capabilities are the main attractions of the Web,
and are made possible through HTML itself, and through Web browsers,
which interpret HTML codes and display the texts accordingly.
Getting Started on the Web
To the unitiated, HTML, with all of its power, may seem quite
complicated. In fact, it is not. After a short tutorial, most
can create simple documents with HTML. This is especially true with the
growing number of available HTML editors (for Macs, IBM/DOS and
Windows, Unix). Getting hold of a Web browser, getting it
configured and running has become easier as well. In the coming
months, the MTO staff will be preparing documentation on how to
get started with the Web and HTML. Rather than wait for us to
catch up, subscribers may prefer to buy one of the many books
now available in computer sections of many bookstores.
After reading this far about the virtues of the Web and HTML,
subscribers may be disappointed to learn that this issue's items
are not multimedia documents, with specially formatted texts
and integrated graphics. The new boethius and MTO URLs are so far
our only examples of HTML documents. All of the actual MTO items
are plain text documents. In the future, as our staff becomes
more fluent with HTML, and as authors begin to prepare their
contributions with it, MTO will become increasingly a multi-
media journal. In order not to exclude subscribers who may not
have access to the Web, we will continue to provide plain text
versions of all documents, retrievable through mto-serv, the MTO
FileServer, FTP, and gopher.
mto-talk
Our new forum, mto-talk, for discussing items published in MTO, has been
tremendously successful. Unfortunately, just as the exchanges on various
topics got under way, the current SMT Networking host (at Harvard) had major,
unanticipated problems. The difficulties seem now to have been resolved, and normal
service will resume on March 20.
Claire Boge, the Manager of mto-talk
(
talk-editor@societymusictheory.org), had to
learn the "ropes" of managing a mailing list in a short time and has done an outstanding
job. The problems with the Harvard Internet host did not make for an easy start. Even
amid the pressures, during the service outage she went to the extra trouble of compiling
five digests for subscribers, so that everyone would be up to date on the main
discussion threads: responses to John Rothgeb's article on the Tristan Chord, Fourier
analysis, and Post-structuralism, the last topic an outgrowth of Adam Krims's essay in
MTO 0.11.
The MTO staff is very pleased at the success of the journal's companion
discussion forum. We encourage your continued active participation.
Closing Word
There's a fascinating, colorful, hypertextual multimedia world
awaiting you on the Web. If your institution provides the
necessary equipment and software, read up on the Web and give it
a try. If you do not have access, or are unsure, ask your local
computing services for information about becoming Web-capable.
MTO will no doubt develop gradually toward becoming a multimedia
journal. We hope our subscribers will develop with us so that
they can enjoy a publication that delivers high-quality scholarly
research in a modern technological environment.
Lee Rothfarb, General Editor, Music Theory Online
3/17/95