ICOM members may be particularly interested in the link provided in
this announcement to:

     http://icom.museum/idn

This press release is also available on the Web at:

     http://about.museum/idn/pressrelease.html

/Cary

 - - - - -

Museum Domain Management Association
c/o Swedish Museum of Natural History
Box 50007
SE-10405 Stockholm, Sweden
Tel: +46 8 5195 5150
Fax: +46 70 384 3246

Contact: Kate Parson
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

                          PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

           INTERNATIONALIZED DOMAIN NAMES NOW AVAILABLE IN
                  THE .MUSEUM TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN

Stockholm, Sweden, 22 January 2004 - The Museum Domain Management
Association (MuseDoma) announced that it is now possible to register
Internationalized Domain Names in the .museum top-level domain
("dot-museum" - http://about.museum/). This Internet domain is
reserved for the use of the professional museum community and has been
in operation since November 2001. Although it is global in scope,
names in .museum have previously been limited to the 26-letter A-Z
Latin alphabet. With the availability of Internationalized Domain
Names (IDN) it is now possible for a museum to indicate its name in
any written language in present-day use.

MuseDoma is the Sponsoring Organization for .museum and is responsible
for developing domain policies in response to the interests of museums,
worldwide. One of its initial goals was to make internationalized names
available at the earliest possible time. The technical standards necessary
for this were finalized in June 2003 and guidelines for their application
in top-level domains were established by the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN - http://icann.org/). The implementation
of IDN in .museum was authorized by ICANN on 20 January 2004.

Support is initially being provided for selected European languages
and will be expanded as rapidly as possible to accommodate the needs
of all .museum name holders in the global museum community. "The
ability of museums to identify themselves using their own languages
provides a strong force for expanding the museum presence on the
Internet", said Manus Brinkman, Secretary General of the International
Council of Museums (ICOM - http://icom.museum/), which played a key
role in the creation of .museum and remains actively involved in its
operation and development. MuseDoma's President, Cary Karp, said,
"IDN is an exciting new Internet initiative and we look forward to
participating in its development on behalf of the entire heritage
management sector".

Detailed background information and a description of the policies
and procedures for the inclusion of IDN in .museum is located at
http://about.museum/idn. Examples of the way ICOM is using IDN
in .museum can be seen at http://icom.museum/idn.

About the .museum organization:

The Museum Domain Management Association is a nonprofit organization
that was established in 2000 by ICOM and the J. Paul Getty Trust
(http://getty.art.museum/), specifically to develop a proposal for the
establishment of a top-level domain in which museum activity could be
immediately and verifiably recognized by Internet users. This proposal
was subsequently approved by ICANN, which delegated responsibility for
the new domain's operation to MuseDoma. The Swedish Museum of Natural
History hosts the .museum Network Information Center in Stockholm. The
European Commission supports an Awareness Campaign about .museum
(http://musenic.museum/) within its Information Society Technologies
Program for Cultural Heritage Applications
(http://www.cordis.lu/ist/directorate_e/digicult/index.htm). The
introduction of IDN is the most recent of the actions that these
agencies have conducted in collaboration in the on going development
of .museum.

For more information, please contact:

Kate Parson
E-mail [log in to unmask]
Tel: +46 8 5195 5150

                             ###

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