Technical Aspects of the
Digital Library of Mathematical Functions ¹

Bruce R. Miller - Abdou Youssef

Abstract:

The NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF) Project, begun in 1997, is preparing a handbook and Web site intended for wide communities of users. The contents are primarily mathematical formulas, graphs, methods of computation, references, and links to software. The task of developing a Web handbook of this nature presents several technical challenges. We describe the goals of the Digital Library of Mathematical Functions Project and the realities that constrain those goals. We propose practical initial solutions, in order to ease the authoring of adaptable content: a L^ATEX class which encourages a modestly semantic markup style; and a mathematical search engine that adapts a text search engine to the task.

AMS(MOS) Codes: 33-00, 68T30

Footnotes

... Functions¹

Official contribution of the National Institute of Standards and Technology; not subject to copyright in the United States. Research was supported in part by NSF Grant 9980036 and in part by the SIMA, SRD and ATP Programs at NIST.