What's been New on the arXiv.org e-print archives

(Haphazard collection of messages since Summer '96, in principle maintained more systematically starting Oct '97; plus an even more haphazard collection of messages from '94-'96; and even '91-'94.)

Jan 2009

20 Jan 2009

By popular request, the Astrophysics (astro-ph) archive has been split into six subcategories:

astro-ph.CO - Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
astro-ph.EP - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
astro-ph.GA - Galaxy Astrophysics
astro-ph.HE - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
astro-ph.IM - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
astro-ph.SR - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

For more information, see the subcategory descriptions (including links to subdivided new and recent listings). This split should make announcements of new papers more manageable for those interested only in subsets of astro-ph. New astro-ph submissions must be assigned one or more subcategories. (Existing astro-ph articles will be machine-classified according to the new scheme when enough training data has been collected.)

To subscribe to the daily e-mail notifications for only a set of subcategories, you should first cancel your existing subscription (either to astro-ph or physics), and then subscribe only to the subcategories of interest via physics.

Dec 2008

4 Dec 2008: A new "Quantitative Finance" (q-fin) archive has been launched. For more information, see the announcement. It is partitioned into 7 subject categories and e-mail subscriptions can be made to any combination of subject categories. It has been "preseeded" with roughly 1700 relevant cross-listings and reclassification of articles from existing subject categories.

Nov 2008

19 Nov 2008

Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 27 Nov, 25 Dec, 26 Dec, 29 Dec, 31 Dec 2008 and 1 Jan 2009; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 26 Nov 2008 through 16:00 EST Fri 28 Nov 2008 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 30 Nov 2008.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 24 Dec 2008 through 16:00 EST Tue 30 Dec 2008 will be announced at 20:00 EST Tue 30 Dec 2008.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Tue 30 Dec 2008 through 16:00 EST Fri 2 Jan 2008 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 4 Jan 2008. Note that articles submitted after 16:00 EST Tue 30 Dec 2008 will receive 0901 identifiers.

Oct 2008

3 Oct 2008: arXiv passes half-million article milestone: The 262 new submissions received between Wednesday 1 Oct and Thursday 2 Oct, announced Friday 3 Oct 2008, brought the total number of articles on arXiv past 500,000 -- all openly accessible. There are also more than 200,000 old versions of articles which record all public revisions since 1997. If the linear increase in submission rate continues, arXiv will pass the one million article mark in 2015. See press release for more details.

Jun 2008

26 Jun 2008

Increased Size Limits: The automatic size limits have been significantly increased for all areas. They will now affect only a tiny fraction of submitters (<0.1%). We will continue to make exceptions for theses, dissertations and other necessarily large submissions, and offer advice on how to make large submissions more efficient (and thus more widely accessible).

Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 4 Jul; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EDT Thu 3 Jul 2008 through 16:00 EDT Mon 7 Jul 2008 will be announced at 20:00 EDT Mon 7 Jul 2008.

Mar 2008

12 Mar 2008: US NIH public access mandate: Recipients of funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding should be aware of a new requirement that publications after 7 Apr 2008 must be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC). See Cornell University Library advice on the new NIH public access mandate for more information and links to NIH documentation. This reporting requirement does not affect your right to submit arXiv. However, submission to arXiv does not satisfy the NIH reporting requirement.

Feb 2008

16 Feb 2008

Hardware and Software Upgrades: Over the weekend of 1/2 Feb 2008 we moved arXiv to new hardware. This should allow us to keep up with the ever increasing traffic and make several improvements. One is that we now have a cache large enough to store processed PDF versions for all papers -- there should be far fewer "...processing..." responses. We have also put online several software improvements including:

arXiv now accepts submissions in DOCX/OOXML format (from Word 2007 and other OOXML compliant applications).
We have implemented version control for papers submitted prior to November 1997 in the same way as for papers submitted later. In many cases the earlier versions were not recorded and are marked as such in the comments (e.g. arXiv:hep-th/9108006v1). However, in some cases the earlier versions are now available in the usual way (e.g. arXiv:hep-th/9108019v1).

Nov 2007

14 Nov 2007

Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 22 Nov, 24 Dec, 25 Dec, 31 Dec and 1 Jan; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 21 Nov 2007 through 16:00 EST Fri 23 Nov 2007 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 25 Nov 2007.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Fri 21 Dec 2007 through 16:00 EST Wed 26 Dec 2007 will be announced at 20:00 EST Wed 26 Dec 2007.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Fri 28 Dec 2007 through 16:00 EST Wed 2 Jan 2008 will be announced at 20:00 EST Wed 2 Jan 2008. Note that articles submitted after 16:00 EST Fri 28 Dec 2007 will receive 0801 identifiers.

Aug 2007

27 Aug 2007: Note on recent administrative withdrawals due to plagiarism.

Jul 2007

18 Jul 2007

There have been a number of upgrades to the arXiv interface and processing system since April 2007. These include:

arXiv now supports PDFLaTeX. TeX submissions may now include PDF, JPG, or PNG figures using the standard \includegraphics command from the graphics or graphicx packages.
The article identifier system has been updated. The new scheme (which does not include subject information in the identifier) not only allows for a greater number of submissions each month, but it makes reclassification easier (old identifiers did not permit changes in primary classication after announcement). We also hope that the removal of optional subject-class information from the identifier will lead to more consistent citation and linking.
To find a specific paper for which you know the identifier, you may now simply type or paste the identifier (e.g. hep-th/0501001, 0704.0001 or arXiv:0704.0002) into the search box at the top of every arXiv page. This facility replaces the "abs" links for each archive that used to be on the main page.
The abstract pages have been redesigned to more cleanly present the most important information (title, authors, abstract, etc.) and to allow more links to related services to be added in column on the right. See, for example, arXiv:0704.1252
The Statistics archive was introduced on 1 April 2007.
The category math.IT was created as an alias for Information Theory (cs.IT) so that these papers will show in both math and cs searches.

Mar 2007

8 Mar 2007: Change to arXiv identifiers now scheduled for 1 April 2007: The format of arXiv identifiers will change on 1 April 2007 (postponed from 1 January 2007). See Identifier scheme for new submissions beginning 1 April 2007 for details.

Dec 2006

21 Dec 2006

Postponed change to arXiv identifiers: The format of arXiv identifiers will change early in 2007 (exact transition date to be decided). We have postponed the change from 1 January 2007 to allow more time for us and our collaborators to implement the required software modifications. See Identifier scheme for new submissions beginning early 2007 for details.

6 Dec 2006

Revised Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 25 Dec, 26 Dec and 1 Jan; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EST Fri 22 Dec 2006 through 16:00 EST Wed 27 Dec 2006 will be announced at 20:00 EST Wed 27 Dec 2006.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Fri 29 Dec 2006 through 16:00 EST Tue 2 Jan 2007 will be announced at 20:00 EST Tue 2 Jan 2007.

1 Dec 2006

Change to arXiv identifiers: The current form of arXiv identifiers (e.g. arXiv:math.DG/0307245) permits only 999 papers per month in any archive -- in October of this year we got to paper 989 in math, just 11 short of difficulty. We thus have an urgent need to extend the maximum number of submissions that can be handled in a month. We will certainly exceed 999 papers in some months for some archives next year.

To address this issue (and several others), we are going to change the format of identifiers for new papers starting in early 2007 (original 1 December announcement said 1 January 2007, since postponed) to use the form arXiv:0706.0001.

Nov 2006

20 Nov 2006

Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 23 Nov, 25 Dec and 1 Jan; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 22 Nov 2006 through 16:00 EST Fri 24 Nov 2006 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 26 Nov 2006.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Fri 22 Dec 2006 through 16:00 EST Tue 26 Dec 2006 will be announced at 20:00 EST Tue 26 Dec 2006.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Fri 29 Dec 2006 through 16:00 EST Tue 2 Jan 2007 will be announced at 20:00 EST Tue 2 Jan 2007.

August 2006

22 Aug 2006

Links to Grisha Perelman's papers, published only as arXiv.org e-prints are available below. Perelman was named a Fields Medalist at the opening ceremony of the International Mathematical Union.

arXiv.org moderator Terence Tao was also named a Fields Medalist. See http://www.mathunion.org/medals/2006/ for information about the four medalists and their publications including arXiv.org e-prints.

Grisha Perelman's papers on arXiv.org:

1. math.DG/0307245 [abs, ps, pdf]:: Title: Finite extinction time for the solutions to the Ricci flow on certain three-manifolds
Authors: Grisha Perelman
2. math.DG/0303109 [abs, ps, pdf]:: Title: Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds
Authors: Grisha Perelman
3. math.DG/0211159 [abs, ps, pdf]:: Title: The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications
Authors: Grisha Perelman

April 2006

4 Apr 2006: We added access keys to our abstract and listing pages. Access keys allow users to activate certain links using keyboard shortcuts.

Nov 2005

15 Nov 2005

Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 24 Nov and 27 and 29 Dec; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 23 Nov 2005 through 16:00 EST Fri 25 Nov 2005 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 27 Nov 2005.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Mon 26 Dec 2005 through 16:00 EST Wed 28 Dec 2005 will be announced at 20:00 EST Wed 28 Dec 2005
Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 28 Dec 2005 through 16:00 EST Fri 30 Dec 2005 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 1 Jan 2006

Note: Submissions received after 16:00 EST Fri 30 Dec 2005 (21:00 GMT) will receive 0601... identifiers

Oct 2005

11 Oct 2005

Software reversion: For the past three weeks, arXiv has not functioned reliably. We sincerely apologize for not providing the outstanding level of service that users expect.

On 18 Sep 05, we installed new software to allow more flexible and robust classification of arXiv submissions. Unfortunately, the software did not perform as expected and resulted in difficulties and confusion for some of our users.

To restore stability, we reverted to the software used prior to 18 Sep 05. We sincerely regret all inconveniences and are taking steps to ensure that future arXiv developments will be reliable. Thank you for your patience with us.

Sep 2005

24 Sep 2005

Scheduled outage: At 4:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, 24 Sep 2005, we expect an outage for improvements to Cornell University infrastructure. The outage is scheduled to last 18 hours.

All services related to the main site (submissions, user account info, viewing the e-mail addresses of paper authors, etc.) will be unavailable during this time. People planning to submit papers on that day should either submit them before noon or plan to submit them on the following Monday. Readers should use one of our mirror sites to view papers during the outage.

16 Sep 2005

Software upgrade: There will be a disruption in normal service at the main site beginning at 4 PM EST on Friday, 16 September in order to carry out several software upgrades. The disruption is expected to last less than 24 hours. During that time, the main site will be available for browsing, but the submission and replacement services will be unavailable. People planning to submit/replace papers should do so either early Friday or on the following Sunday.

In addition, papers received before 4 PM EST on 16 Sep will be announced at 8 PM EST that same evening, as opposed to the normal 8 PM EST Sunday time for papers received on a Friday. This will be done to minimize the possibility of errors with the software cutover.

7 Sep 2005

Physics reorganization: The physics section of arXiv will be undergoing an extensive reorganization. Over the last few months, the physics advisory committee members and section moderators have been extensively discussing a new organization and classification scheme, which would hopefully be implemented within the next several months.

Jul 2005

25 Jul 2005: BitTorrent version of hep-th: From ~~cartan.harvard.edu~~ torrent.rutgers.edu you may download PDFs and text abstracts of the entire hep-th archive. The download is facilitated by BitTorrent technology to distribute bandwidth. Monthly updates are also available.

Software for downloading torrents is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux at BitTorrent.com.
Special thanks to Joanna Karczmarek for creating the BitTorrents, and Harvard for hosting them. Note: The BitTorrents are not supported by arXiv.org: send comments to Joanna Karczmarek.

Nov 2004

11 Nov 2004

CoRR interface: A new interface for the Computing Resource Repository (corresponding to the cs archive) was installed. It is still in the "beta" phase of production, but cs users are welcome to use it for uploading submissions, viewing listings, etc. Please report any bugs to www-admin@arxiv.org.

4 Nov 2004 [Modified 24 Nov 2004]

Holiday Schedule: To enable our administrators to spend local holidays with their families, mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 25 Nov and 24, 28, and 30 Dec; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation.

Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 24 Nov 2004 through 16:00 EST Fri 26 Nov 2004 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 28 Nov 2004.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Thu 23 Dec 2004 through 16:00 EST Mon 27 Dec 2004 will be announced at 20:00 EST Mon 27 Dec 2004
Articles received from 16:00 EST Mon 27 Dec 2004 through 16:00 EST Wed 29 Dec 2004 will be announced at 20:00 EST Wed 29 Dec 2004
Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 29 Dec 2004 through 16:00 EST Fri 31 Dec 2004 will be announced at 20:00 EST Sun 2 Jan 2005

Sep 2004

29 Sep 2004: Search engine for user help pages: A new search engine for the user help pages was installed, with a search box provided at the top of each user help page.

Jul 2004

23 Jul 2004

Scheduled outage:At noon EST on Sunday, 1 Aug 2004, we expect a scheduled outage for a planned hardware upgrade. Because we need to synchronize the database and other files between the two machines, we will need to disable incoming submissions for several hours. People planning to submit papers on that day should either submit them before noon or plan to submit them on the following Monday.

If all goes as planned, it should be possible to browse papers on arXiv during most of the upgrade. If you do have problems, we recommend that you use one of our mirror sites.

Features that require user login, such as viewing the e-mail addresses of paper authors, will be disabled during the upgrade.

We'd like to thank Sun Microsystems for the gracious donation of a new server. The increased performance of the new machine will help us handle our continuing growth.

Jan 2004

17 Jan 2004: Endorsement System: ArXiv initiates an endorsement system for new submitters. Initially, only a small fraction of submitters will be asked to provide endorsement. As the system is phased in, most new submitters will require endorsement. Existing submitters may not require endorsement for topics in which they have been active.
ArXiv is an openly accessible, moderated repository for scholarly papers in specific scientific disciplines. Material submitted to arXiv is expected to be of interest, relevance, and value to those disciplines.
ArXiv was developed to be, and remains, a means for specific communities of scientists to exchange information. Moderators and the arXiv administrative team have worked behind the scenes to ensure that content is appropriate to the user communities. The growth in number of submissions to arXiv necessitates an automated endorsement system. Current members of arXiv scientific communities will have the opportunity to endorse new submitters. This process will ensure that arXiv content is relevant to current research while controlling costs so we can continue to offer free and open Web access to all.
For more information, see the endorsement help page.

Dec 2003

4 Dec 2003: Holiday Schedule: Mailings and the public availability of new submissions will be deferred for 25,26 Dec and 1,2 Jan; the arXiv servers will otherwise remain in operation. These are typically the lowest activity days throughout the year.
Articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 24 Dec 2003 through 16:00 EST Mon 29 Dec 2003 will be announced at 20:00 EST Mon 29 Dec 2003, and similarly articles received from 16:00 EST Wed 31 Dec 2003 through 16:00 EST Mon 5 Jan 2004 will be announced at 20:00 EST Mon 5 Jan 2004. Replacements received during these periods will not generate a new version number.

Sep 2003

15 Sep 2003: A new "Quantitative Biology" archive, q-bio@arXiv.org, has been opened up for submissions. For more info, see this announcement. It is partitioned into 10 subject classes and e-mail subscriptions can be made to any combination of subject classes. It has been "preseeded" with roughly 2000 relevant cross-listings from existing subject areas.

Jul 2003

6 Jul 2003: A new and more sophisticated author registration system has been put on-line. It provides greater administrative flexibility and better user support, including user ability to maintain past submissions.
See register help for updated information.
In order to improve the quality of the user-provided data, the legacy support for e-mail submissions has been phased out, in favor of exclusive support for web submissions. (The percentage of non-web submissions had decreased continuously in the past seven years to under 16%.)

Dec 2001

13 Dec 2001: arXiv.org main site hardware operations transferred to the Cornell University Library site cul.arXiv.org = xxx.arXiv.cornell.edu

Sep 2001

21 Sep 2001: Minor policy change: Starting Mon 24 Sep 2001, the deadline for submissions to appear in the daily mailings will be moved *three hours earlier*: to 16:00 US Eastern time (i.e., to 20:00 GMT, and 21:00 GMT during the winter) Monday through Friday, the first change in this time since 8 Jul '99. The start of the mailings (and web interface update) will be moved to four hours earlier: to shortly after 20:00 Eastern time on Sunday through Thursday (i.e., to 00:00 GMT Mon-Fri, and 01:00 GMT during winter; the first change in this time since 7 Oct '96). Those submissions received between 16:00 and 20:00 EDT/EST will appear in the following day's mailing. Submissions received before the Friday 16:00 EDT/EST deadline will be announced on the following Sunday at 20:00 EDT/EST, and submissions received during the remainder of the weekend will be announced along with the Monday submissions (as since 15 May '97) on Monday night at 20:00 EDT/EST time.
As ever, whether or not a submission makes the deadline on any given weekday is unlikely to alter markedly the future evolution of the cosmos.
4 Sep 2001: Administrative oversight for arXiv operations transferred to the Cornell University Library (CUL), and configuration of the cul.arXiv.org = xxx.arXiv.cornell.edu mirror site proceeds.

Dec 2000

6 Dec 2000: The automated software now recognizes and processes Mathematica Notebook files. For more information, see notebook submission help.

Aug 2000

1 Aug 2000: South Africa users: note new South Africa mirror at http://za.arXiv.org/ , hosted by Department of Physics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Jan 2000

6 Jan 2000: The nlin-sys archives have been reorganized starting 1 January, 2000. The archives adap-org, chao-dyn, comp-gas, patt-sol, and solv-int have been subsumed as subject classes in the new " nlin" archive (see nlin info for more information). The intent is to bring these archives into conformity with the format of the newer archives, and to facilitate further expansion or reorganization. (Note that this also means these archives will now be updated -- and abstract mailings issued -- every weekday, rather than just once per week.) Beginning 1 Jan 2000, chao-dyn submissions for example should be sent To: nlin@arXiv.org with the added line (i.e. following Title:, Author:, etc.):
Subj-class: Chaotic Dynamics
and analogously for the other above subsumed archives. Submissions to chao-dyn@arXiv.org will be automatically rerouted as above, and assigned numbers beginning with nlin.CD/0001001. As a replacement for the cross-listing mechanism (between nlin archives), use multiple Subj-class: entries separated by ;'s (the first is the primary). It is also possible to subscribe to receive daily abstract notifications for any subset of the nlin-sys subject classes (see nlin subscribe -- current e-mail subscribers have been automatically transferred). Comments or suggestions for possible reorganization of the subject classes can be sent to www-admin@arXiv.org.
1 Jan 2000: Survived Y2K hysteria

Dec 1999

31 Dec 1999: As previously announced, the xxx Announcements Forum has shut down at the end of 1999.
For more information, see announcements.
1 Dec 1999: US users: note new US mirror at http://aps.arXiv.org/, hosted by Brookhaven National Laboratory for the American Physical Society

Sep 1999

22 Sep 1999: New search interface at the main site. Incorporates better fielded searching, better boolean support, and much improved author name searching. The new search system will eventually propagate to the mirror network.

Jul 1999

8 Jul 1999: Minor policy change: the deadline for submissions to appear in the daily mailings has been moved one hour earlier, to 17:00 US Mountain time (i.e., currently 23:00 GMT, and 00:00 GMT during the winter) Monday through Friday (the first change in this time since 4 Aug '96). The mailings will continue to commence (and web interface updated) shortly after 22:00 on Sunday through Thursday (i.e., currently 04:00 GMT Mon-Fri, and 05:00 GMT during winter, as since 7 Oct '96). Those few submissions received between 17:00 and 22:00 mountain time will appear in the next day's mailing. Submissions received before the Friday 17:00 deadline will be announced on the following Sunday at 22:00, and submissions received during the remainder of the weekend will be announced along with the Monday submissions on Monday night at 22:00 mountain time (as since 15 May '97).

Jun 1999

29 Jun 1999: The xxx Announcements Forum is no longer accepting new registrations, and will shut down at the end of 1999. For more information, see announcements.
17 Jun 1999: Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Los Alamos e-Print Archive will suspend the ordinary database updates and mailings on Monday and Tuesday the 21,22 June 1999. For more information, see "security standdown."

Apr 1999

20 Apr 1999: The number of accumulated submissions to the archive has reached 100,000. See monthly submissions for the running count.

Dec 1998

28 Dec 1998: New domain name arXiv.org registered. All of archive.org, archives.org, thearchive.org, thearchives.org were already taken. Since the word 'archive' has a Greek root, X indicates the Greek Chi, imitating Donald Knuth's usage in the scientific typesetting language TeX (pronounced Tech), also preserving at least one of the original three x's. Note also that the word archive itself goes back to the greek "archos" for ruler, or "arche" to begin or rule, where "archeion" was the government house, and led to the latin "archivum" as a place where public records or historical documents were preserved -- hence it was natural for what is now arXiv to have in the .gov domain.

Sep 1998

15 Sep 1998: A new Computer Science archive, cs@xxx.lanl.gov, has been opened up for submissions. For more info, see CoRR. It is partitioned by Subject Classes (along the lines of the math archive, inititated in Jan '98), with 32 Subject Classes. E-mail subscriptions can be made to any combination of Subject Classes.
The "Computation and Language" archive (cmp-lg) has been subsumed as one of the Subject Classes of the new cs archive. New submissions will be automatically directed to the new Subject Class (cs.CL), and e-mail subscribers have been automatically transferred to the new archive.

Apr 1998

2 Apr 1998

Announcement: The Banach archive run for many years by Dale Alspach at Oklahoma State University has been merged into the LANL math archive. As part of this merger, two math subject areas have been created within the LANL archive:

math.FA Functional Analysis
Banach spaces, function spaces, real functions, integral transforms, theory of distributions, measure theory
math.OA Operator Algebras
Algebras of operators on Hilbert space, C*-algebras, von Neumann algebras, non-commutative geometry

Please take care when classifying papers which you submit to the archive.

Detailed instructions for modifying your set of subscription subject areas, adding or subtracting the above areas (or others), can be obtained by sending e-mail to math@xxx.lanl.gov with Subject: subscribe

Mar 1998

30 Mar 1998: Note on upcoming reorganization of Mathematical Physics section:
At the behest of the IAMP (=International Association of Mathematical Physics), starting 1 April 1998 the Mathematical Physics section of the archives will be reorganized to bridge the physics and the recently reorganized math groupings. The current "Mathematical Methods in Physics" subject class of the physics archive will be subsumed into a new "Mathematical Physics" archive math-ph@xxx.lanl.gov , to which future submissions should be sent. (If you are not sure whether or not your submission is physics, then it should be sent to math-ph). Submissions will also automatically appear under a "MP = Mathematical Physics" subject class of the math archive, and as usual can be cross-listed elsewhere. Current e-mail subscribers to "Mathematical Methods in Physics" will automatically be subscribed to the new archive. Current math subscribers can add the MP subject class starting 1 Apr.
9 Mar 1998: India users: note new Indian mirror at http://xxx.imsc.ernet.in/

Jan 1998

22 Jan 1998: The PDF produced here now includes subsetted embedded fonts. This was made feasible by the new font compression format (CFF/Type 2) introduced in PDF-1.2 (see 13 Nov 1997). This more compactified Type1 format reduced the byte cost of font inclusion by more than a factor of three.
Note that not all PDF viewers support the font compression format (e.g. under NeXTStep, only PDFView.app (1.7) supports it; while the current versions of OmniPDF.app (2.1.3) and PDFViewer.app do not support it).

Dec 1997

27 Dec 1997: The math archives will be reorganized starting 1 January, 1998. The archives alg-geom, dg-ga, funct-an, and q-alg will be subsumed as subject classes in the new "math" archive (started 12/97 -- see math info for more information). The intent is to provide a better organized framework for coverage of additional mathematical subject areas. Beginning 1 Jan 1998, q-alg submissions for example should be sent to math@xxx.lanl.gov with the added line (i.e. following Title:, Author:, etc.):
Subj-class: Quantum Algebra
(the AMS Mathematical Subject Classification(s) should now appear on an MSC-class: line). Submissions to q-alg@xxx.lanl.gov will be automatically rerouted as above, and assigned numbers beginning with math.QA/9801001. As a replacement for the cross-listing mechanism (between math archives), use multiple Subj-class: entries separated by ;'s (the first is the primary). It is also possible to subscribe to receive daily abstract notifications for any subset of the math subject classes (see math subscribe -- current e-mail subscribers will be automatically transferred).
An external "front end" can be found at UC Davis front.
5 Dec 1997: Due to the healthy growth of the astro-ph archive, we are considering a Subj-class: organization similar to that which exists for the cond-mat and and physics archives. Suggested subject classes include: Cosmology and Large Scale Structure, Extra-Galactic Astronomy, Galactic Astronomy, Stars and the Interstellar Medium, Compact Objects, Planetary Systems, Stellar and Galactic Dynamics, High Energy Astrophysics, Instrumentation and Methods, History and Education. (The subject classes function effectively as separate "archives", though the collective astro-ph archive will of course continue to exist as well.) Please read astroreorg before sending comments.

Nov 1997

13 Nov: PDF is now produced with Adobe Distiller set to level 3.0. This produces smaller PDF files due to internal compression. Users of Acroread 2.1 and older need to upgrade to a more recent version of the PDF reader.
10 Nov: Completely reorganized help texts on-line.

Oct 1997

1 Oct 1997: All official versions of papers submitted starting in Oct '97 (i.e. with numbers >= 9710) are made publicly available through the archive Web interface. See versions for more information.

Sep 1997

11 Sep: The e-mail search and e-mail address databases at xxx.lanl.gov discontinued (due to limited usefulness and potential for abuse in accumulating bulk e-mail lists).
9 Sep: China users: note the new Chinese mirror, http://xxx.itp.ac.cn/, at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Beijing

July 1997

29 Jul: Australia users: note the new Australian mirror, http://xxx.adelaide.edu.au/, at the University of Adelaide
21 Jul: Added description of the correct way to refer to eprints within a paper.
11 Jul: Important news for Windows users: the latest version of GSview can now read compressed files (compensating for the deficiencies in Netscape and Internet Explorer which fail to uncompress them). See Workaround solutions for Windows for details.

June 1997

30 Jun: Frequent complaints re multipart and gzipped files, see nota bene
30 Jun: Added information on the latest postscript drivers for Macintosh. These eliminate junk from the Macintosh postscript output. See the psjunk FAQ for details.
30 Jun: Added a user-supplied .com file for automatically viewing compressed postscript on VMS.
14 Jun: A user has kindly provided a Windows 95 batch file which automatically uncompresses postscript files for viewing, see Viewing compressed postscript - Workaround solutions for Windows.
13 Jun: Added some information about viewing compressed postscript on VMS.
6 Jun: For users in Germany, PDF is available on xxx.uni-augsburg.de, thanks to local support at University of Augsburg. Other mirror sites redirect to xxx.lanl.gov for PDF. Before trying to download PDF read the PDF setup instructions -- you need to download and install extra fonts to make the files viewable.

May 1997

16 May: Russia users: note the new mirror in Moscow, xxx.itep.ru, at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics.
16 May: Japan users: note the new upgraded mirror in Kyoto, xxx.yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp, at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics. New papers arrive by 13:45 JST (within 1 hour of availability at LANL).
15 May: Minor change in policy (affects only weekend submissions): the deadline for submissions to appear in the Sunday night mailing is moved back to Friday 18:00 LANL time (currently 00:00 GMT). Submissions received during the rest of the weekend will appear with Monday submissions in the Monday night mailing. After consultation with a large segment of the relevant community, it was determined to continue to delay the announcements of papers received on Fridays until Sunday nights (Monday mornings in Europe), rather than shift the Sunday mailing to Friday night. In a related development, responses to any queries received during the weekend may also be deferred until Monday morning (9:00 LANL time = 1500 GMT) -- Note that 99.97% of all e-mail queries are already answered in our comprehensive on-line help pages and frequently asked questions section. Recall also that any replacements received after the 18:00 LANL time deadline Mon-Fri constitute a new (revised) version. Please note that whether or not your submission makes the deadline on any given weekday is unlikely to alter markedly the future evolution of the cosmos.
11 May: Spain users, there is now a mirror site at the Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain, xxx.unizar.es. Other users see our existing list of mirror sites.; Updated information on Macintosh postscript viewers and added some info on a Mac shortcut to getting a bitmap version of any figure

April 1997

Added a cookies form for selecting default viewing formats and classic icons.

Renovated FAQ area has more workarounds for Windows and Macintosh browsers.

March 1997

17 Mar: Brazil users: note new Brazilian mirror, http://xxx.if.usp.br/, at the Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo; Added the question How can I submit a paper if I don't use TeX? to the FAQ; We are now using Thomas Esser's teTeX distribution as the base of our tex system.
4 Mar: Israeli users: note the new mirror, http://xxx.tau.ac.il/, at the University of Tel-Aviv

January 1997

19 Jan: Taiwan users: note the new Taiwan mirror, http://xxx.sf.nchc.gov.tw/
19 Jan: German users: note the new upgraded mirror site, http://xxx.uni-augsburg.de/, at the University of Augsburg

December 1996

Added a Space Physics subject class to the Physics archive

November 1996

24 Nov: Korean users: note the Korean mirror, http://xxx.snu.ac.kr/, at the ICPR
15 Nov: New hardware for xxx.lanl.gov, provided under NSF contract

October 1996

7 Oct

In order to facilitate feeding the european mirrors each night before the transatlantic links become congested, daily mailings and update of the web interface will now commence at 22:00 U.S. Mountain time Sunday through Thursday (currently 04:00 GMT Monday through Friday), i.e. two hours earlier. The deadline for submissions remains 18:00 US Mountain time (i.e., currently 00:00 GMT, and 01:00 GMT during the winter) Sunday through Thursday.

5 Oct

e-mail subscribers to the physics archives: note that by subscribing to the corresponding subject classes of the new "physics" archive, you have the option to receive a single combined daily mailing (e.g. hep-th, gr-qc, and cond-mat). The option to receive separate mailings will of course remain. For further instructions, e-mail To: physics@xxx.lanl.gov, Subject: subscribe
For general information on the new physics archive (partitioned by keyword subject classification), see http://xxx.lanl.gov/new/

1 Oct

1 Oct '96 Reorganization -- Information on the following three topics is available:

as well as a brief philosophical synopsis.

September 1996

24 Sep: Experimental mirror sites are now operating in France, http://xxx.lpthe.jussieu.fr/ (Paris VI) and the U.K., http://xxx.soton.ac.uk/ (Southampton) joining the existing mirrors in Germany ( http://physinfo.uni-augsburg.de/) and Italy ( http://babbage.sissa.it/) and Japan ( xxx.yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp). The latter two will soon be upgraded, and additional mirror sites are anticipated within the next few months. The goal is a more robust global server system (to avoid relapse to the medieval days when hardcopy took days, weeks, or months to arrive...)
24 Sep: On 1 Oct '96, a new "physics" archive will go on-line, and is intended to facilitate growth into areas not currently covered. Submissions will be required to have a Subj-class: field that will effectively keyword partition the archive (for subscriptions, listings, and searches). Existing archives will for the most part remain unaffected. A very provisional list of canonical subject-classes be found at http://xxx.lanl.gov/new/physics.html , and can be modified as needed. Constructive suggestions solicited.
2 Sep: nlin-sys archives (adap-org chao-dyn comp-gas patt-sol solv-int) consolidated from xyz.lanl.gov to xxx.lanl.gov

August 1996

4 Aug: Minor policy change: the deadline for submissions to appear in the daily mailings has been moved six hours earlier to 18:00 US Mountain time (i.e., currently 00:00 GMT, and 01:00 GMT during the winter) Sunday through Thursday. The mailings will continue to commence (and web interface updated) shortly after midnight on those days (i.e., currently 06:00 GMT Mon-Fri, and 07:00 GMT during winter). Those few submissions received between 18:00 and midnight mountain time will appear in the next day's mailing. For the most part, this change will be invisible (and will primarily affect late night submissions from the US east coast, sparing us all the 2 a.m. typos...).

(There's also an even more haphazard collection of messages from '94-'96, and even '91-'94.)

lanl.arXiv.org > new