11 th INIS/ETDE Joint Technical Committee Meeting Agenda Item 2.4 Special Characters Debbie Cutler, ETDE OA 6-8 November 2007 Vienna, Austria
IAEA/INIS 11 th JTC Agenda Item 2.4 Current special characters extend ASCII, but are limited: #, _, and “ used as signal characters Superscripts and subscripts Greek letters and some mathematical symbols Transliteration tables, too, plus recent use Current systems for input, output, display and searching handle these for both INIS and ETDE
IAEA/INIS 11 th JTC Agenda Item 2.4 (cont.) ISO 2709 exchange format is main limiting factor XML offers greater possibilities for character sets Previous meetings suggested a subgroup be established to discuss possibilities, once XML was closer to implementation Unicode, UTF-8, MathML (definitions in papers) – views on what is realistic?
IAEA/INIS 11 th JTC Agenda Item 2.4 (cont.) Aspects/implications that need to be considered: Input (input tool capability, inputter’s capability, country-specific input tools, data from publishers) Data transfer and processing Output Displaying in products Searching in products Storing
IAEA/INIS 11 th JTC Agenda Item 2.4 (cont.) Discussion/Questions What are members’ views/experiences regarding these issues and what is realistically achievable for special characters within INIS/ETDE systems? How should INIS and ETDE proceed with regard to addressing next steps for an enhanced set of special characters?