October 1, 1996

MCN '96/CHIN '96 PROGRAM ADDITIONS AND REMINDER RE: WORKSHOPS and
SIG MEETINGS

This year's Museum Computer Network Conference, co-hosted by the
Canadian Heritage Information Network, is being held in Ottawa,
October 30-November 2, 1996.

Here are some program updates.  The final conference program will
be distributed to registrants at the conference.

**For more information on the conference, contact Kerridwen Harvey
at 1-819-994-1200 (tel); 1-819-994-9555 (fax); [log in to unmask]
(e-mail).**

Added to the program since its last update (August 9) on the conference Web page
(http://www.chin.gc.ca under "what's new") are the following sessions:

*The World-Wide Web and You: Using the Internet to Fulfil Your Institution's
Mission*
Panelists:
Erik Rask, Canadian Heritage Information Network
Tom Moritz, California Academy of Sciences, USA
Others to be confirmed

Level:  All levels
Theme: Web

In this session, panelists will examine various ways in which the World-Wide Web
is being used by museums or other institutions to help fulfil their mandates.
This session will present case studies and also answer some of your questions
about how to make the Web work for you and your organization.

*Audience Development and New Technology*
Chair and Panelist: Rosalyn Rubenstein, Rubenstein & Associates, Canada
Panelists: Douglas Worts, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada
Gaby Porter, Museum of Science and Industry, United Kingdom
Brian Reagan, Heritage Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage

Level:  All levels
Theme: General

This session presents new research and programs which pertain to a fundamental
theme: audience development and new technology. Questions to be explored in this
session include:
How can we best serve our audiences and ourselves through technology? Who are
the audiences who will use the new technologies? What have we learned about the
similarities and differences between actual and virtual museum visitors? How can
we best collaborate and share the results of our research and experiments to
reach audiences effectively through new technologies? Museum pilot projects
which have successfully brought in new audiences (actual and virtual) will also
be discussed. Overall, this session will present key questions, research data,
tools, principles and strategies for reaching audiences effectively using new
technologies.

*Access to Collections in Context: The EAD in Museums and Archives*
Moderator and Panelist: Richard Rinehart, University of California,
Berkeley/Pacific Film Archive, USA
Panelist: Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Level: Intermediate
Theme: Standards

The Encoded Archival Description (an implementation of SGML) is being used by
the archival and museum communities to provide collection-level access to
collections along with object-level access. This has technical implications for
integrating specific and contextual information, but more importantly has the
potential to enhance intellectual and educational access, since a museum's
collections can be delivered in an envelope of history and ideas, which
compliments the specific object information. This method uses the SGML standard
which helps ensure the longevity of collections information, as well as sharing
of that information with larger information structures (i.e., Library of
Congress systems). The EAD can be used to compliment a collections database, or
as a starting point for museums which don't yet have complete item cataloging,
but want to provide broad access to their collections. It is especially suited
to represent hard-to-catalog collections, such as conceptual art
collections, or collections which include objects and manuscripts - collections
that demand a context to be understood. Lastly, the EAD demonstrates a
successful collaboration and sharing of methods between the library, archive,
and museum communities. The panelists will discuss how their organizations are
using or developing the EAD, and what the benefits and obstacles are.


A number of speakers have also been added to sessions already listed the
program.


Pre-conference Workshop Reminder
Space is still available in the following full-day pre-conference workshops:

Tuesday, October 29:
*HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) - offered in French only*
Instructor: Jean-Marc Edwards, University of Ottawa, Canada

*Introduction to Image Databases*
Instructor: Howard Besser, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Wednesday, October 30:
*Planning for Museum Automation*
Instructor: Suzanne Quigley, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA

*Introduction to the Internet*
Instructor: David Bridge, Smithsonian Institution, USA

*How to Create a Web Site*
Instructor: David Jakob, XIST Information Services & Technology Inc.

*Museum Documentation Standards: Where Do They Come From? How Do they Serve
You?*
Instructors: Susanne Warren and Elisa Lanzi, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, The
Getty Information Institute, USA, Murtha Baca,Union List of Artist Names, The
Getty Information Institute, USA

*Intermediate/Advanced Issues in Image Databases*
Instructor: Howard Besser, University of California, Berkeley, USA

*Implementing the CIMI Approach to SGML*
Instructor: Richard Light, FIAP Consultant and Software Developer, UK

Sorry, "Putting it All Together: Integrated Information Systems in Museums"
is SOLD OUT.


Special Interest Group Meetings:
Meeting this year are the following SIGs:
    Archaeology & Ethnology SIG
    Canadian SIG
    Controlled Vocabulary SIG
    Copyright SIG
    Internet SIG
    MIS SIG
    Standards SIG
    Visual Information SIG

        Conference participants are welcome to attend any of these meetings,
     which take place during the conference Friday, November 1, from 8-8:55
     a.m.