SGML for Web Pages

[William Oldfield]

As the Head of cataloging at the University of Waterloo Library for many
years, I participated in the design of a number of database cleanup
projects.  Our original machine readable records were create before MARC
was established.  Then there was AACRII.  It seems we were alway upgrading
our records to the latest standard.

Now I see the same thing happening with our Web documents.  HTML 1.0 became
HTML 2.0 and now we are more than half way to HTML 3.0.  The truth is it
will never end.  We are creating dated documents today that will have to be
updated tomorrow.  Granted that HTML documents may never be as stable as
bibliographic records but we are creating documents we will want to
upgrade.  We need a coding standard for Web documents that is as flexible
and powerful as MARC has been for bibliographic records.

Why not start at the top.  Code our documents according to a standard that
could be sent to a typesetter for top quality output using a standard SGML
(Standard Generalized Markup Language) format.  We could use that document
to send to the printer as well as delivering it via the Web.  Since Web
browsers ignore tags they don't understand we wouldn't even have to convert
the full SGML coded documents for HTML delivery if HTML development
followed tha same standard. If the developers of HTML were to first develop
an SGML standard for Web documents that would do everything anyone ever
dreamed of doing and then as HTML capabilities expanded and browsers
evolved, we wouldn't have to upgrade any documents to take advantage of new
capabilities.  Of course, Java applets designed as viewers of specific
document types may render this academic but I still see the upgrading of
documents in our future if we don't do something now.

Just some thoughts for comment on a Friday.




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William Oldfield (Networked Information Research Associate)
University of Waterloo Library            Phone: (519) 888-4567 Ext. 2461
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1         Email: wroldfie at library.uwaterloo.ca
UWELib:   http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/
Homepage: http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/~wroldfie/home.html