[WEB4LIB] Marking up documents

Fri Sep 3 16:48:29 EDT 1999

Please forgive the late reply; I've been on vacation.  

I have a very primitive example of using XML to mark up structured documents--oral history transcripts, to be specific.  Take a look at http://www.ohsu.edu/bicc-Library/staff/crumj/XML/  I haven't updated the page in awhile, so it still refers to the beta version of IE5.  I should also warn you that it is just a primitive prototype, proof-of-concept project.

I hope you find it helpful.

Janet

----
Janet A. Crum (http://www.ohsu.edu/bicc-Library/staff/crumj/))
Bibliographic and Database Services Librarian
Oregon Health Sciences University
voice: (503) 494-0691; fax: (503) 494-3227

>>> Marion Haworth <marionh at fedcourt.gov.au> 08/25 5:35 PM >>>
I would be interested in finding out if anyone has tackled and solved the
problem of automatically marking up specific elements within a judgment (or
any electronic document) in such a language so as to enable automatic
importation into any database, or to enable information sharing between
organisations regardless of proprietary software.

For example, the Court's judgments (and those of many other courts) contain
standardised information such as Medium neutral Citation, Judge, Date of
Judgment, Place of Judgment, Cases considered, etc. 

HTML does this to a certain extent in that it marks the beginning and end
of specific elements within a document, eg. <body></body>, but is not
software independent, i.e. a web browser has to be used to interpret the
markup, and the tags which can be recognised are limited.  

I believe XML might be the answer. I have found plenty of sites which give
testimonials as to the use of XML in business when they are wanting to
transfer information from one system to another, or from their internal
system to the Internet. But have been unable to find any instance if it
being used in a library to mark up specific elements within standardised
documents so as to enable information sharing accross platforms and
software types. 

Any leads would be most welcome.

Sincerely

Marion Haworth
Systems and Projects Librarian
Web Site Administrator
Federal Court of Australia
http://www.fedcourt.gov.au