February 28, 1997

Preliminary Notice: CIMI Announces A
Symposium on DTD Interoperability

Many organizations are designing DTDs for cultural information that have
relevance to each other.  With the successful completion of the CIMI DTD in
June 1996 and other DTDs such as the Encoded Archival Description, TEI,
Aquarelle, etc. there is a need toencourage interoperability and
convergence of effort in the application of SGML in the cultural community.

This is a preliminary notice that CIMI wishes to bring together
representatives from projects that have completed DTDs and have
demonstrated experience in their application to cultural heritage
information for a symposium to define and explore issues of
interoperability.

Organizations

All DTDs available for use will be analyzed before the symposium to make a
summary of development history, design features, scope of application,
functionality, suitability for intended audience and compatibility with
other DTDs.

Symposium participants will explore issues of museum metadata,
interoperability, and pragmatic issues of implementation in a "typical"
cultural institution.  The goal of the symposium is bring together people
with an interest in and experience with the application of SGML for
cultural heritage material to discuss issues of interoperability and make a
preliminary plan for addressing the issues.

Anyone interested in DTD development and their implementation should
consider attending.  For more information on CIMI see www.cimi.org/cimi.

The arrangements described below are tentative and will be confirmed in April.

Date:    June 17-18, 1997

Location:  Research Libraries Group, Inc., Mountain View, California

Contact:    Margaretta Sander  [log in to unmask]; 902-826-2224,
Project Manager in the CIMI Office.  ***NOTE: CIMI OFFICE IS CLOSED MAR.
1-20, 1997


This is a part of CIMI's exploration of SGML as a tool for accessing
cultural heritage information and making it available on-line.

Margaretta Sander
RR2 252 Viewmount
Tantallon, N.S. B0J 3J0 Canada
voice: 902-826-2824  fax: 902-826-1337