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Description - This Task Force will determine the special character standard that should be implemented by STIP for submission of STI via E-Link (both in the announcement record and associated full-text).

Objective - Evaluate special character sets, standards, and versions available for implementation by STIP.

Deliverable - Recommendation of a special character standard and version appropriate for implementation by STIP for submission of STI via E-Link that assures appropriate conversion of special symbols and entities and subsequent searchability of full-text data in the InfoBridge database.

Duration - Beginning December 1999 for several months.

Team Leader - The leader for this Task Force is Rita Hohenbrink.

Facilitator - The Task Force facilitator is Susan Tackett.

Team Members:

TEAM MEMBERS PHONE # FAX # E-MAIL ADDRESS
Julie Bean, SRS     julie.bean@srs.gov
Mary Coglianese, ANL 630-252-8692 630-252-5024 mcoglianese@anl.gov
Sue Davis, OSTI 865-576-2615 865-576-2865 daviss@ostinet.osti.gov
Dennis Elchesen, LLNL     elchesenl@llnl.gov
Dave Hamrin, ORNL     hamrindr@ornl.gov
Juli Hearn, SRS     julianna.hearn@srs.gov
Rita Hohenbrink, OSTI 865-576-1773 865-576-2865 hohenbrinkr@ostinet.osti.gov
Dan McGowan, PNNL     Dan.McGowan@pnl.gov
Betsy Schwartz, BNL 631-344-2758 631-344-2090 bjs@bnl.gov
Susan Tackett, OSTI 865-576-0344 865-576-2865 tacketts@ostinet.osti.gov
Pat Terry, RL     patrick_m_pat_terry@rl.gov
Joanna Wiggins, YMP     Joanna_Wiggins@ymp.gov
Mike Woods, OSTI 865-576-2244 865-576-2865 woodsm@ostinet.osti

Minutes from December 15, 1999 Meet-Me Call of the Task Force to Evaluate Special Character Sets:
The meeting took place at noon, Eastern, on Wednesday, December 15, 1999.
Participants: Dan McGowan, PNNL; Mary Coglianese, ANL; Mary Nyhouse, LLNL; Juli
Hearn, SRS; Rita Hohenbrink and Susan Tackett, OSTI.

We each gave an overview of what we are currently using. OSTI and ANL are still using OSTI's old special characters standard which was developed for printed products. The standard uses curly brackets {} with a word describing the special character inside. Some examples are: {ge}, {delta},{union}Dan from PNNL said their researchers want special characters in their metadata so they tried the HTML special character set but it was too awkward. They are looking at trying unicode. They actually have a bigger problem than just special characters since they have multi-lingual STI and unicode handles that. The problem is finding fonts to display the unicode. They won't be able to do any prototypes for at least a couple of months.

Juli from SRS said the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is leaning toward XML to make it the international standard for special characters. Right now they are using PDF to handle special characters. (What about metadata??) They are looking into moving to Lotus Notes for e-mail and using the Domino server for electronic routing and review, and Juli wanted to know if that would support unicode. (Dan later responded "Yes", assuming that they really are using the latest and greatest version - version 5. I don't think it is supported in any of the version 4 releases, which is still the predominant release of Notes/Domino. Version 5 was just released about 6 months ago.)

Susan and Rita would like to recommend that we keep each other apprised of developments at our sites in the area of special characters, and have meet-me calls every other month, until there is substantive changes or progress in this area.






  

Last page update:  8/21/03