The last and present issue of MTO are excellent examples of the benefits of electronic publishing. Roger Wibberley's provocative essay on musica ficta in MTO 2.5 stimulated an interesting dialog on mto-talk among Cristle Collins Judd (U.S.), Victor Grauer (U.S.), Nicolas Meeus (Belgium), Jonathan Walker (Northern Ireland), and Wibberley (England). This issue of MTO, appearing only two months later, includes commentaries on the essay by Margaret Bent, whose notion of "diatonic ficta" was a focus of Wibberley's article, and by Jonathan Walker, who pleads a case against the unjust verdict on Just Intonation in performance practice.
Electronic publishing may never replace print publishing, but its rapidity, versatility (multimedia) and growing accessibility are clear advantages over print, assuring it a prominent and unique place in the future scholarly world.
MTO is pleased to offer subscribers current research and responses. We encourage readers to contribute to discussions on mto-talk, and to submit essays and commentaries for publication in MTO.
MTO has evolved with Net technology. We established a Web server in January, 1995 (MTO 1.1) and began offering documents in both non-graphical plain-text (ASCII) and hypertext formats (HTML), the latter integrating text, graphics, and sound. We have continued to provide plain-text documents of all items, and have maintained mto-serv, our plain-text FileServer, a Gopher and anonymous FTP site for those who do not have the necessary equipment to use the graphically-oriented Web, or who prefer to retrieve MTO in plain-text format.
Providing MTO in two formats has always required a bit more work for the small staff, but we accepted that burden in order to ensure that anyone with even the most basic Internet service--an email account--would have access to MTO. Now that the journal has expanded in content with the new Music Theory International department (see below), Advertisements, a New Book section (and perhaps yet another to be announced in MTO 2.7!), the burden of producing each issue of MTO in two formats has grown substantially. We are therefore considering the possibility of offering MTO as a Web-only publication, that is, in HTML format only. Plain-text versions of MTO items would no longer be made available (except for the table of contents, which would still be distributed by email). The burden of providing two versions of all items would be eliminated, shifting some responsibility to our subscribers, who would need to begin using a Web browser in order to read MTO. Those who have sufficient hardware resources would probably want to get and learn to use one of the graphical Web browsers. Those who lack the resources would need to ask the system administrator of their Internet host to install a non-graphical (plain-text) browser such as Lynx.
Lynx is very easy to use and is available on most hosts. Those who have relied on mto-serv and email to retrieve and read MTO items may be surprised to discover that they can, in fact, read MTO on the Web by typing "lynx http://societymusictheory.org/mto/index.html" at an Internet host's system prompt (and then hitting ENTER). Because Lynx is a non-graphical browser, it can be used with even the most basic terminal emulations (e.g. VT100). Lynx does not display images but does allow users to transfer image files to their Internet hosts, from which the files can then be downloaded to a home computer and viewed offline with a graphics monitor and appropriate software. Robert Judd, MTO Manager, wrote a guide to Web tools in volume 1.3. Subscribers may want to consult that guide in considering the best way to access the Web.
The reader survey distributed last week was designed to help us gauge the readiness and willingness of our subscribers to move to a Web-only MTO. If you have not yet filled it out and sent it in, please do so as soon as possible. The survey is included below in case you cannot find yours. Copy the survey into an email message, fill it in, and send it to mto-survey@societymusictheory.org. We hope to have a high response rate so that we know how to proceed.
Back to Menu
Music Theory Online Reader Survey
The MTO editors would be grateful if you would take a moment to reply to this request for information. Our goal is to provide the most effective and useful service we can, while conserving resources as far as possible. Please send your reply to mto-survey@societymusictheory.org. Do not send it to mto-list@societymusictheory.org. 1. MTO ACCESS a) Do you access MTO via e-mail, gopher, ftp, or the Web? b) Do you normally download/print or do you read online? c) How would you react to eliminating ascii versions of MTO? 2. LYNX a) Are you aware of Lynx Web access at your internet host? b) Have you used Lynx satisfactorily or not? c) How would you feel about switching to Lynx for a Web-only MTO? 2. MTO SERVICES a) What MTO services do you find particularly valuable? b) Are there services you believe could be eliminated? c) Do you know of services we don't provide that ought to be considered? 3. MECHANICS AND CONTENT a) Do you have other comments as to the mechanics or content of MTO? b) Can you suggest improvements to mto-talk? Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply. A report on the responses will appear our next issue (2.7, November 1996).
Per F. Broman submitted a report for this issue on three seminars that took place in connection with the 1996 ISCM World Music Days (Copenhagen).
If you live in a country not yet represented, please contact me at the address below if you are interested in serving as a Correspondent, or if you would like to suggest someone.
Send suggestions for further auto-responder addresses to me.