Some thoughts on the near-future Digital Mathematics Library

• Main Author: Thierry Bouche
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Babel; DML
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.400.1687; http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/34/77/12/PDF/dmlthoughts.pdf

Abstract. The mathematicians ’ Digital mathematics library (DML) summarises the generous project that all mathematics ever published should end up in digital form so that it would be more easily referenced, accessed, used. This concept was formulated at the very beginning of this century, and yielded a lot of international activity that culminated around years 2002–2005. While it is estimated that a substantial part of the existing math literature is already available in some digital format, nothing looking like one digital mathematics library has emerged, but a multiplicity of competing electronic offers, with unique standards, features, business models, access policies, etc. The millenium’s appealing idea has become a new Tower of Babel. After a quick overview of the idiosyncrasies of mathematical literature with a historical perspective, we discuss strategies toward the implementation of a possibly tiny subset of the DML.