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<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Dear all,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Sorry if I'm getting some of you twice by copying both groups.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">At the recent E-MELD meeting, especially during the archiving panel discussions,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I came to the realization that we are not doing a very good job of getting the message</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">about OLAC metadata out into our field. The problem, I think, has been an </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">over-emphasis of the technical side - the XML syntax and how to become an OLAC</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">data provider - and a paucity of basic pedagogical documents aimed at linguists who</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">really don't care how</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">searching systems work</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">. And then I realized (with a gentle reminder</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">from Gary S.) that providing those friendly documents is the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">job of us OUTREACHERS,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">not of the OLAC developers, nor yet of the poor over-worked</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">grad students who do the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">pages for the School of Best Practice.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I think the School is the right place to disseminate information for the Ordinary Working</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Linguists. Let the OLAC site maintain information aimed at programmers and developers;</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">let the school teach the rest. It'll make things easier for us to manage, imho.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">So, I decided to rewrite the metadata pages on the School, right now, this summer, </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">while I've got some time for it and it's fresh in my mind. Jeff Good has volunteered to</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">help me, but he is on the brink of becoming a father for the first time, which can be</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">expected to distract him considerably.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">(So I could use some other volunteers....)</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">My plan is to write a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">h</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">ow</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">-</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">to guide that does not mention XML anywhere, except in</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">a link labelled something</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> like</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> "technical details." My goal is to get all linguists who collect</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">data to also collect and maintain OLAC metadata, in any comfortable format they please,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">so they can one day deliver their data to some repository and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">then</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> they and other people</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">can</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">locate and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">properly cite that data.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">If any of y'all have suggestions or requests or</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">comments on the existing pages</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"> at the</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">School</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">, I would like to hear them - soonish, if possible.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I especially need examples of OLAC</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">metadata for real resources,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">and even more</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">especially</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">examples of the use of the Relation</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">element.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">More metadata for the masses!</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> </SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Heidi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A NAME=""><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">-----------------</FONT></SPAN></A></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Heidi Johnson, PhD</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Project Manager</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">1 University Station C3200</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">The University of Texas at Austin</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Austin, Texas 78712</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">(512) 495-4604</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">hjohnson@mail.utexas.edu</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New"><A HREF="http://www.ailla.utexas.org">http://www.ailla.utexas.org</A></FONT></SPAN></P>
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