Prior to the arXiv, "the photocopy machine was a prime component of the distribution system" \cite{2011arXiv1108.2700G} and  preprints were only exchanged to personal contacts and/or mailing lists  \cite{Elizalde_2017}. Institutional repositories, such as the SPIRES-HEP database (Stanford Physics Information REtrieval System- High Energy Physics) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and the Document Server at CERN only acted as bibliographic services, helping scientists to keep track of publication information. But while SPIRES greatly improved the flow of metadata, it was still hard to retrieve the full manuscript. A new typesetting system would soon emerge and change this.