AMS: A Vision for Linking

Mathematical research requires navigating the literature rather than merely reading papers. While electronic publishing will make navigation more efficient, many obstacles prevent us from creating a true web of mathematical literature. Publishers have not agreed on a consistent method for linking. When the older literature becomes available online, adding links to it in already published papers will be difficult. Authors and publishers have few tools for determining online availability or for building links.

The American Mathematical Society believes that using MathSciNet for linking to original papers overcomes many of these obstacles and fosters linking of electronic literature, both now and in the future. Authors or publishers can add a permanent link to the MathSciNet entry for each reference in a published paper using a standard format and employing tools that are available free of charge from the Society. The Society in return pledges to add links from MathSciNet to original papers whenever possible (already there are more than 300,000) and to keep those links up to date in the future. Readers are therefore able to navigate from any reference in two clicks, first to the MathSciNet entry and then to the original paper (when it is available). And even those without a subscription to MathSciNet can access original articles because a special relay-link to the original paper appears for such users.

There are a number of advantages to this linking scheme:

• Building links for authors and publishers of source articles is simpler, requiring a single format and tools that are provided free of charge.
• Building links allows authors and publishers to verify bibliographic data for journal articles using the Mathematical Reviews database. This results in more consistent references.
• Readers often obtain two kinds of information — a review (or summary) and the original article. In many cases, the review may be more helpful than the article itself, and when the original article is unavailable to the reader, a review may suggest whether to pursue it.
• Publishers of target articles need take no action to enable linking (except to maintain a systematic format to access their journal articles).
• The older literature from the past 60 years becomes part of the web immediately through reviews of the papers. As these older articles become available online, new links will be added, without any action by source publishers.

The new MRef tool makes creating links to MathSciNet easy and efficient. We hope the community will make a commitment to add these links to all new papers and will encourage publishers to include links in their electronic literature.

John Ewing
Executive Director
American Mathematical Society

September 2003