From: Greg Kuperberg Subject: The xxx math archives and Hopf To: dmd1@lehigh.edu Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 22:19:28 -0800 (PST) Dear Algebraic Topology Discussion List, I'm writing to you, as contributors to the Hopf topology archive, about a new development in math e-print archival: the unified xxx math e-print archive, in particular AT, the algebraic topology category. Before reading further, you should look at this archive either at the new Front for the xxx Math Archives: http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ or directly at Los Alamos: http://xxx.lanl.gov/ The xxx archives have over 60,000 e-prints in physics, accruing at a rate of 20,000 per year, and 3,500 e-prints in mathematics, mostly in four traditional areas (algebraic geometry, differential geometry, quantum algebra, and functional analysis). xxx has a full-time staff and is funded by DOE and NSF. The archives have radically altered scholarly communication in theoretical physics and astronomy and have significantly influenced experimental physics and the areas of mathematics which they cover. Recently, a committee of mathematicians was formed (by Dave Morrison) to expand the math archives to all areas of mathematics. Here are the members of this committee: Dave Morrison Joe Christy Dick Palais Gilbert Baumslag Greg Kuperberg Jim Stasheff Robert Bryant Robert Lazarsfeld Mark Steinberger Bill Casselman Andy Odlyzko Bill Thurston As part of the expansion, Dave invited 15 non-xxx math e-print archives to merge with xxx. Three of these archives (MAGNUS, Several Complex Variables, and the Banach Archive) have accepted our invitation and have been or will be merged. Promising negotations are under way with at least two other archives. In addition, two new categories, combinatorics and geometric topology, are fully operational. Partly as a result of these changes, the xxx math archives are by far the largest math e-print archive service on the Internet. Clarence Wilkerson has decided to maintain the Hopf Topology archive in parallel with the unified archive, rather than merging with the others. This means that Hopf e-prints will not be moved en masse to xxx at this time. However, an algebraic topology category exists at the xxx math archive (which strives to be comprehensive). We, the members of the committee, invite you to submit future e-prints to both archives. The easiest way to do this at present is to first submit to xxx and then download the dvi file produced there to send on to Hopf. Perhaps an even easier method will be available later. In addition, you are free on an individual basis to resubmit any existing Hopf e-print to xxx. In the absence of coordination with the Hopf archive maintainers, I will e-mail each of you abstracts of your e-prints with simple instructions for xxx submission. I thought it was best to address you as a group before taking this step. In addition to the obvious fact that xxx e-prints are much more visible to the entire mathematical community, sending e-prints to xxx has other advantages: * Automatic web-based submission system and paper compilation. You can interactively submit an e-print to xxx on the web, which will automatically convert the e-print from tex to dvi, ps, and pdf formats and distribute the paper worldwide the next day (no waiting). * Worldwide mirror sites and tailored formats xxx has 15 mirror sites, which will carry the re-organized math archives starting in mid-January: xxx.adelaide.edu.au (Australia) xxx.yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp (Japan) xxx.if.usp.br (Brazil) xxx.itep.ru (Russia) xxx.itp.ac.cn (China) xxx.snu.ac.kr (South Korea) xxx.lpthe.jussieu.fr (France) xxx.unizar.es (Spain) xxx.uni-augsburg.de (Germany) xxx.sf.nchc.gov.tw (Taiwan) xxx.imsc.ernet.in (India) xxx.soton.ac.uk (U.K.) xxx.tau.ac.il (Israel) xxx.lanl.gov (U.S.) xxx.sissa.it (Italy) Each of these mirror sites will deliver postscript, dvi, pdf, or source (except for old and migrated e-prints which may not be available in all formats; also, in some cases pdf requests are redirected to LANL). With the postscript format you can choose the font resolution to match your printer, or you can choose scalable fonts. European mirrors center legal paper e-prints for A4 paper while the American mirror does the reverse. * Dedicated support Questions sent to www-admin@xxx.lanl.gov are usually answered the same day by one of the four staff members. The staff also develops new software and ensures efficient, uninterrupted e-print delivery from all mirrors. * A polished front end I am developing the Front the xxx Math Archive, http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ , hoping to make it as fluid and powerful as possible for users. The Front has an up-front calendar of e-prints and list of authors for each category, space-efficient listings, and a natural search and link syntax: http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/search/thurston http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/search/author:thurston http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/search/thurston+not+author:thurston * Cleaned-up, searchable authors, titles, and abstracts I have edited most of the Hopf topology abstracts in preparation for migration or to help authors resubmit e-prints to xxx. For example: From: adem@math.wisc.edu Title: Representations and K-theory of Discrete Groups Authors: Alejandro Adem Subj-class: AT; KT \\ Let Gamma be a discrete group of finite virtual cohomological dimension with certain finiteness conditions of the type satisfied by arithmetic groups. We define a representation ring for Gamma determined on its elements of finite order which is of finite type. Then we determine the contribution of this ring to the topological K-theory K^*(B Gamma), obtaining an exact formula for the difference in terms of the cohomology of the centralizers of elements of finite order in Gamma. \\ (Note the above abstract will be sent to Alejandro Adem and will NOT be used directly by xxx.) Compare with http://hopf.math.purdue.edu/pub/Adem/ann.abstract In addition, if we had coordination with the Hopf archive maintainers, these e-prints would have been labelled by the date of last modification at the Purdue site or by date of announcement by Mark Hovey, whichever is earlier. * Future plans Future plans include more mirror sites and full-text searching. We will also negotiate with refereed journals so that you can submit an e-print by directly entering the xxx number in a web form provided by the journal. The archive will be announced in Concerns of Young Mathematicians and in the Notices of the AMS. Authors of new e-prints will be regularly posted to sci.math.research to popularize the archive. Greg