This announcement was posted on NEW-LIST last week and may be of interest
to the members of CIDOC-L and MUSEUM-L (apologies to those who receive
multiple copies).
 
                     *         *          *
 
ICOM-SWEDEN on [log in to unmask]
 
     The International Council of Museums consists of
     international committees which fill disciplinary needs
     within the museum sector (such as the Documentation
     Committee - CIDOC, and the Musical Instrument Committee -
     CIMCIM) and national committees which meet the
     interdisciplinary needs of individual countries. Several of
     these committees are in the process of establishing a
     presence on the Internet and it may safely be assumed that
     others will be doing so in the reasonably near future.
 
     ICOM-SWEDEN is a pilot network project for the Swedish
     National Committee. The list will cover issues of concern to
     the committee and its constituent institutions. Particular
     emphasis will be placed on means by which these
     organizations can make their information resources available
     to the network community. This will include discussion of
     means for providing and accessing network services, as well
     as general announcements of museum activities.
 
     The list is also intended to serve as a forum for the
     discussion of issues which may arise when establishing
     network services for communities with language requirements
     that are not entirely fulfilled by the existing standards
     regulating the Internet. For example, Swedish language
     contributions to ICOM-SWEDEN are both welcome and
     encouraged. However, Swedish uses a 29-letter alphabet,
     three letters of which are not supported by the relevant
     e-mail standards. List members will therefore need either to
     agree on the use of a single one of the various options
     which are available for accomodating the entire Swedish
     alphabet, or learn how to deal with the varying use of
     several of these options.
 
     Similar problems will occur in the vernacular distribution
     lists of other ICOM national committees, and it is hoped
     that the discussion on ICOM-SWEDEN will be of utility to the
     other committees when confronting these problems. Although
     the primary intent of the list is to serve specified needs
     of the museum community, relevant contributions are welcome
     from people who are not directly involved with such
     institutions.
 
     If it should appear warranted as the list's activities
     become more clearly defined, the Swedish and English
     language contributions will be separated into two distinct
     lists (adding an ICOM-SVERIGE for the former material).
     Similarly, if the discussion of general language issues
     becomes substantial, a separate list for this may also be
     established.
 
     ICOM-SWEDEN is open for public subscription and
     contributions may be submitted without restriction. If you
     wish to join the list please send a message to:
 
     [log in to unmask]
 
     with the very first line in the message, unindented,
     containing the command:
 
     SUBSCRIBE ICOM-SWEDEN Yourfirstname Yourlastname.
 
     The mail server ignores invalid commands, so please be
     extremely careful to ensure that the subscription command is
     on the first line in the body of the message and that there
     is no "white space" preceding the command. Be sure that your
     e-mail program does not insert any type of memo header at
     the outset of the message. Your subscription will be
     acknowledged by a text providing detailed information about
     the list and its operation. If you do not receive this text
     by return e-mail you may assume that there was a problem
     with the processing of your request.
 
     If you have trouble accessing this service please contact:
 
     Listowner:     [log in to unmask]
 
 
Cary Karp <[log in to unmask]>       Department of Information Technology
Phone: +46 8 666 4055       Swedish Museum of Natural History
Fax:   +46 8 15 22 77       Box 50007, 104 05 Stockholm, Sweden