please excuse cross-postings February 26, 1997 CIMI ANNOUNCES A DISTRIBUTED SEARCH AND RETRIEVE INTEROPERABILITY TESTBED PROJECT Summary Details follow on an opportunity for museums, libraries, systems developers, campuses, corporations and other institutions or organizations to take part in a eight month Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI) program starting May/97 to implement Z39.50 in museums and cultural heritage information management systems. This is a part of CIMI's exploration of Z39.50 as a basis for distributed searching of museum and library and archives databases. ********************************************************** Dear Colleague, CIMI with support of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is pleased to announce the CIMI Z3950 Interoperability Testbed project. This is an exciting opportunity for developers and providers of museum information systems who may not be members of the CIMI consortium to take part in a project to develop integrated online access to library, archive and museum information resources. For more information on CIMI see <www.cimi.org/cimi>. A selected group of participants will work with CIMI consortium members to implement Z39.50 as a basis for searching museum databases regardless of the type of system they are held in and as a way for there to be interoperability between information resources in libraries, archives and museums. CIMI is seeking responses from interested parties who: * Build or develop museum collections management systems, library applications, or cultural heritage information resources, or partnerships of museums and a system vendor/developer; * Have an interest in implementing the Z39.50 search and retrieve standard; * Are interested in the application of Z39.50 for solving problems of coherent access to museum, bibliographic and archival information. Participants Will: Work with CIMI consortium members to implement the CIMI Z39.50 Application Profile by building support for it into an application system. Spend 2 days in Washington, DC learning about Z39.50 and the CIMI profile; Receive Z39.50 utilities, tool kits and program code to assist with the integration of Z39.50 support into the local systems; Implement agreed parts of Z39.50 and the CIMI Z39.50 application profile into their local system; Participants Are Required To: Implement Z39.50 support in a museum collection management DBMS or extend existing Z39.50 bibliographic system to support the CIMI profile to the extent prescribed in the implementers agreement (available Mar 20/97); For the purposes of the test be willing to make accessible databases of museum object records, images with associated texts, or bibliographic records. Attend the Interoperability Training Workshop, a 2-day session in Washington DC, May 15-16, 1997 (tentative dates); Participate in 3-4 subsequent meetings (up to 2 days each) of which one will be in Europe between April and October 1997; Submit a simple monthly record of time and expenses; Contribute a written assessment of the experience as part of the project documentation. Participants Will Receive: A stipend of $5000 as a contribution to expenses of participation Access to high-level technical expertise in Z39.50; CIMI developed tool-kits and utilities and program code; An opportunity to help shape the way museum information will become easily and universally accessible. If this describes you, please send an expression of interest to John Perkins <[log in to unmask]> or Bill Moen <[log in to unmask]>. CIMI is expecting to choose up to 5 participants who will help shape the way museum information will become easily and universally accessible. In addition, we encourage you to copy and/or pass this announcement on to appropriate colleagues in your organization or elsewhere. We look forward to hearing from you by MARCH 21, 1997. John Perkins Bill Moen CIMI Project Director Project Manager [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] voice: 902-826-2824 voice: 817-565-3563 fax: 902-826-1337 /jp