PAST EVENTS

Meeting announcements are posted on this site's Events page and distributed to all Forum members by email. Announcements of past meetings are archived in reverse chronology below.

Reconstitution Meeting

April 1, 2004
Standard & Poor's, New York

After a hiatus of nearly three years, the Forum reconvened and determined to renew its programming activity. Minutes of this important meeting were kindly compiled by Joseph Davidson. A number of unresolved discussions will be resumed in the plenary session of the next meeting on May 11.

Content Management Using XML

April 24, 2001
The Depository Trust Company, New York

Now that publishing to multiple media types (print, Web, CD/DVD, WAP, etc.) has become so prevalent, the need to manage all content throughout its life-cycle has also become a major priority for many organizations. This has led to a blurring of the lines between traditional document management, content management and related application categories, and a confusing proliferation of software solutions from new and established vendors.

This is the first in a series of presentations in which the SGML Forum will explore some of the issues relating to content management and the choice of appropriate software solutions and vendors.

Keynote:
Life in the Fast Lane -- Avoiding the Potholes

Mary McRae, Director of XML Services, DMSi

Information is proliferating all around us, and people want to be able to create it, deliver it, and maintain it, all at the speed of sound. Personalization, localization, globalization, all on the device of your choice; a unique experience is promised for each individual. We'll talk about what you need to put together to make it all work.

Click here for slides from Ms. McRae's presentation. If you do not have Microsoft PowerPoint, click here to download a free copy of PowerPoint Viewer 97 (2000 Release).

For more information about DMSi, see www.dmsi-world.com.

Vendor Presentation:
Interactive Content and Personalization Using Chrystal's Eclipse

Jay Myers, Director, Sales, Chrystal Software Inc.

Eclipse provides specific capabilities to users who are involved in creating, managing, and delivering Web content. These user arenas are built on an underlying architecture that provides the core functionality for content capture, content management, dynamic assembly, personalization, and business rules. It provides full content management, and is compatible with existing Web pages, Web design tools, Internet browsers, Web servers, and XML authoring software.

For more information about Chrystal, see www.chrystal.com.

Web Publishing with SVG -- An XML Graphics Standard

June 26, 2000
New York Hilton, New York
Held in conjunction with the XML DevCon 2000 Conference and Exhibition

Event sponsored by SGML Forum of New York and Camelot Communications

For more information on XML DevCon 2000, see www.XMLDevCon2000.com.

Publishing e-Books Using XML

May 3, 2000
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

With major vendors such as Adobe, Microsoft, Palm and Gemstar (of Rocket eBook and SoftBook Reader fame) lending credibility to e-books, and the recent popularity of Stephen King's novella on the Web, e-books are becoming more popular with consumers and more of a challenge for publishers. Fortunately, the Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF) has recently published its new XML-based standard for e-books "that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and, most importantly, consumers."

(For more infomation on the Open eBook initiative, see www.openebook.org.)

The SGML Forum of New York is proud to present two of the pre-eminent players in the burgeoning e-books business to talk about e-books and XML.

Publishing e-Books Using XML

Ken Brooks, Vice President, Barnes & Noble Digital Content Division
Amanda Kimmel, Associate Director of Electronic Publishing, Random House, Inc. Ms. Kimmel is a member of the interim Board of Directors for the Open eBook Forum.

The publishing community views electronic publishing as a means to garner new revenue streams via digital distribution. There is broad concern about issues of format, digital rights management, and especially, the conversion of out-of-print books to electronic format. In addition, publishers face the task of updating internal processes to allow for production of electronic versions of books.

Mr. Brooks will address technical issues relating to XML and e-books.

Ms. Kimmel will provide insight into how Random House is addressing these issues as a forward thinker in the publishing community. In addition, she will explain why Random House is a strong supporter of the Open eBook Forum. In doing so, she will describe the Open eBook Forum in detail, including a brief history of the OEBF, its current focus, and its future direction.

Vendor Presentation:
Using XML to Publish to x-WAP

BroadVision, Inc.: Lynne Gambone -- BroadVision is a world leader in personalized eBusiness and content management. Its XML Wireless Application Product x-WAP(TM) automatically and easily allows enterprises to dynamically assemble and distribute information to any wireless device from a single container of information, dramatically extending enterprise e-business. Through the power of eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), enterprises can now seamlessly transform WML, HTML, and XML business content for presentation to wireless devices, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, pagers and e-books.

IBM and Pearson on XML

February 16, 2000
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

Is your organization waiting for the major industry players to make their XML moves before embarking on its own XML projects? If so, this session will demonstrate that the time for action has certainly come.

The SGML Forum of New York is extremely proud to present two eminent speakers who, along with their companies, are fully committed to, if not totally immersed in, XML technology. We'll be hearing from Marie Wieck, Director of XML Technology at IBM corporation, and from Richard Walkus, Vice President, Digital Asset Management and Corporate Digital Archive, Pearson Education.

IBM's XML Strategy and Vision

Marie Wieck, Director, XML Technology, IBM Corporation

IBM has been in the forefront of IBM technology since the early days of the standard. The company's presence has been felt on virtually all levels, from traditional publishing to e-commerce, within its hardware, software, operating system and consulting divisions. IBM's AlphaWorks has been actively developing XML toolsets and making them freely available to the XML community. What accounts for IBM's intense activity in this arena? Where does IBM see XML headed, and what does it see as its own role in XML's evolution? These are some of the issues that Ms. Wieck will address in her talk to SGMLNY Forum members.

Click here for slides from Ms. Wieck's presentation.

The Emissary System: On-the-Fly Digital Distribution

Richard Walkus, Vice President, Digital Asset Management and Corporate Digital Archive, Pearson Education

The Emissary System is a database-driven all-media publishing and secure digital distribution system. It allows Pearson Education publishing units to produce on-the-fly custom print and electronic products, and distribute them via a bookstore or directly to the end user. Emissary allows PE to sell existing content transformed into new products to current and new customers. In his presentation, Mr. Walkus will describe Emissary, as well as some of the issues and design decisions that went into its creation.

Click here for slides from Mr. Walkus' presentation (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Making Sense of XML DTDs and Schemas: A Practical Introduction

December 15, 1999
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

Just when you mastered DTDs and thought it was safe to start bragging about it, here comes the W3C with what seems to be a whole new paradigm -- and a new syntax to go along with it. What was wrong with the good old DTD? What effect will the new way of doing things have on me and my business? What tools and methodologies will I need to deploy in this brave new order? And what is this "data typing" thing they're all talking about, anyway?

These are critical questions to anyone using or contemplating using XML, whether in the publishing or data exchange arenas. To help answer them, the SGML Forum of New York has enlisted two of the foremost experts on the subject: old friend and fellow Forum member Bob DuCharme of Moody's, and Scott Vorthmann of Extensibility, one of the premier XML tool crafters.

Making Sense of XML DTDs and Schemas: A Practical Introduction

Bob DuCharme, Assistant Vice President, Moody's Investors Service -- To help us make sense of the different XML schemes for defining tag sets and their relationships, Bob will:

  • Summarize the shortcomings that XML users from outside the publishing world see in the expressive power of XML 1.0 DTDs
  • Give a brief overview of proposals for and politics of proposed replacements
  • Give a tour of some of the features and syntax of the W3C's XSDL schema proposal (see part 1 and part 2 at www.w3.org/TR)
  • Demonstrate an XML parser that outputs error messages when it finds elements whose content doesn't conform to the type (e.g. integer, boolean, etc.) in the corresponding XSDL schema

Bob DuCharme (www.snee.com/bob) is the author of Prentice Hall's XML: The Annotated Specification and has written the "XML Beat" column for TAG: The Journal of Intelligent Content Management since before XML was a Recommendation. He also wrote Prentice Hall's SGML CD, a tutorial and users' guide to free SGML software, and McGraw Hill Professional Books' Operating Systems Handbook. He has contributed to XML.com, the updated XML Handbook, QUE Publishing's Using SGML, and Prentice Hall's SGML Buyer's Guide. An assistant vice president at Moody's Investors Service, Bob oversees the implementation of SGML and XML systems there. Bob received his BA in religion from Columbia University and his masters in computer science from New York University. He currently lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with his wife Jennifer and their two daughters.

Vendor Presentation

Extensibility, Inc.: Scott Vorthmann, Senior Architect -- XML Authority is a graphical design tool accelerating the creation and enhancing the management of DTD's and schemas for XML. With support for data typing, solutions for data structures and document structures converge. XML Authority includes a toolset to help convert existing application and document structures to schemas, defining the basis for well-formed XML documents and enabling valid XML. With output supporting XML's existing and emerging schema standards, XML Authority provides adaptive qualities to XML deployments. XML Authority fully supports the XML 1.0 DTD specification, and extends it with data typing support, providing an incomparable toolset for advanced document publishing and data interchange applications. In addition to support for DTD's, XML Authority delivers advanced capabilities of the emerging XSDL schema specification.

Scott Vorthmann earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 1990. His work before joining Extensibility focused on language tools, including compilers, language-based editors, and integrated development environments. As a Systems Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, he performed basic research in these areas, and applied his ideas to the Pascal programming environment used in introductory programming courses at CMU. After leaving CMU, Scott and a partner formed GenieWorks, LLC, and created and marketed SpotCheck, a Java-aware program editor for the Macintosh. Scott is currently a Senior Architect with Extensibility, Inc., working on new product design and product integration.

Case Study: Leaping the Yawning Chasm -- Converting Paper to SGML

October 20, 1999
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

As the world rushes to catch up with traditional publishing in the use of SGML/XML for rich data representation, the publishing industry itself is adopting new electronic publishing paradigms. Large legacy data collections amassed on paper in the pre-electronic-publishing era -- such as those in libraries -- are being migrated to SGML/XML and delivered electronically. The post-facto application of metadata to existing bodies of work presents a unique set of issues and challenges.

In this session we will hear how one of the most venerable and respected libraries in the world is using SGML/XML technology to make its collections available worldwide. And one of the world's foremost data conversion services will explain how they address the issues and challenges involved in moving masses of data from plain, old paper into richly tagged SGML/XML.

Case Study

New York Public Library: Joan Gatewood et al. -- The New York Public Library uses SGML to make its collection more accessible. Staff from the Library will demonstrate how they are using the TEI and EAD DTDs to publish texts and information on the web for their worldwide users. They will demonstrate how they plan to integrate text, images and sound in future projects, and will discuss why SGML/XML is the Library's format of choice for information that requires broad application and long-term stability.

Vendor Presentation

Data Conversion Laboratory: Janet Feld and Lesly Gross -- Data Conversion Laboratory works closely with a variety of libraries nationwide, converting their documents for publication on the world wide web. This is an involved process, which includes adapting existing DTDs and customizing new ones to meet clients' special needs. Detailed specifications must be developed to map "flat" information on paper to tagged electronic data. Software must be written to generate the SGML/XML, and procedures devised to assure the quality of the tagged result. During production, thousands of pages must be tracked through myriad production steps, while a timely delivery schedule is maintained.

Lesly Gross, Project Manager and Data Analyst, will provide a revealing look at how some of this magic is accomplished. Janet Feld, Production Supervisor, ensures that all the cogs in DCL's production machine mesh and run smoothly together.

Case Study: Breaking New Ground With SGML and XML

June 29, 1999
The Depository Trust Company, New York

The program will examine the broadening scope of SGML and XML, as it encompasses both electronic publishing as well as global transaction processing in the financial industry.

Our focus will be on an enterprise that is exploiting the electronic publishing as well as the e-commerce potential of SGML/XML. We're going to hear about The Depository Trust Company's (DTC) experiences in adapting their software documentation and procedure manuals into SGML and their transition to a full SGML authoring and content management tool set. The diverse set of output media DTC has to contend with created a particular challenge. And we're going to get a preview of what DTC's Information Technology Group is working on--using XML as a means of data interchange among firms involved in securities transaction processing.

To cover such expansive territory our format will differ somewhat from the usual. Instead of presenting one or two speakers followed by a vendor presentation, we're planning to serve up a smorgasbord of speakers, each of whom will deliver a portion of our repast.

The Depository Trust Company Speakers:

  • Carol A. Kruger, Manager, Business Systems Documentation (BSD), will review the complexities of DTC's documentation requirements, the business challenges, publishing solutions, and strategic plans for content management.
  • Mitchell Abramson and Barbara Edwards, Publishing Specialists, BSD, will describe the integrated technologies used for authoring, publishing, workflow and storage, and will demonstrate the Electronic Document Management (EDMS) system developed with Microstar consultants.
  • Susan Chan and Brad Taggart, Applications Development Specialists, Information Technology, will present an overview of XML initiatives currently underway at DTC.

About The Depository Trust Company

DTC is the world's largest depository, holding more than $20 trillion in assets for its participants and their customers. DTC is also a national clearinghouse responsible for the settlement of trades in corporate and municipal securities. Last year, DTC processed over 164 million book-entry deliveries valued at more than $77 trillion. Owned by members of the financial industry, the depository's mission is to reduce the securities operations costs of its participant banks and broker/dealers. Its telecommunications network links 546 participants and their institutional customers, as well as firms serving as transfer agents, paying agents, and exchange and redemption agents for securities issuers.

Vendor Presentation

Microstar Software, Inc.: Joseph Davidson, Managing Consultant -- In addition to being an independent solutions integrator, Microstar has been the leader in SGML modeling tools since its Near&Far/Designer product was first launched in 1994. With the rapid proliferation of XML applications, Microstar has now released Near&Far Designer/XML Edition and is planning further enhancements that specifically support transaction-oriented XML models. Joe will discuss the some of the challenges of XML from a modeling standpoint and some of the upcoming enhancements Microstar is planning, including support for XML schemas and many other useful features.

Case Study: Publishing from a True SGML Database

May 18, 1999
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

Although we've all seen some impressive "SGML Databases" how many of us have experienced a full implementation of such a system?

Tonight's case study will show how McGraw-Hill successfully publishes its Encyclopedia of Science & Technology in both print, CD and soon to be released Internet product, while using a true, object oriented SGML database as its backbone.

RHC Electronic Publishing: Bob Hecht, President -- The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, currently in its 8th edition, is recognized as the leading general science and technical reference work in the world. The article database which feeds both the encyclopedia and the annual updates are managed in a state of the art, object oriented content management system which provides the backbone for the entire ES&T product family, (print, CD-ROM and, the soon to be released, Internet products). This discussion will provide a short history of the product's evolution while focusing on the decisions (good and bad) which have impacted its development over the past eight years.

Bob Hecht, President of RHC Electronic Publishing, Inc., is a consultant and software developer with 14 years experience developing electronic products for the publishing industry. He was responsible for managing the design, development, and implementation of the SGML based content management system used to deliver print and electronic forms of McGraw-Hill's Encyclopedia of Science & Technology.

Vendor Presentation

Progressive Information Technologies -- Tonight, Progressive will demonstrate TARGET 2000, a Content Management Database deigned to address the increasingly complex needs of their clients.

TARGET 2000 is Oracle-based, object-oriented relational database system, with an intuitive Windows graphical user interface. Flexible SGML formatting and a unique design, in which content is stored in TARGET 2000's database SEPARATELY from any tagging, ensure enhanced information adaptability for multiple outlets, including traditional print, web publishing or CD-ROM. Publishers, such as the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), W. B. Saunders Medical Publishers, and The McGraw-Hill Companies are already taking advantage of the TARGET 2000 system.

Case Study: Online Publishing--How to Get From Here to There

April 13, 1999
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

Elsevier Science: John Mancia, Vice President Production -- Publishers and other information providers continue to seek out the most efficient and effective means of serving their market needs. This discussion will review Elsevier's approach to SGML production issues related to online publication and examine how that approach fully satisfies the various markets served.

American Institute of Physics: Nancy Boll, Information Technology -- AIP's Online Journal Service is host to all of the AIP published journals as well as other journals published by both our member and affiliated societies. This presentation will describe how AIP's richly tagged SGML database of articles enables AIP to offer many advanced features to our online subscribers, such as: Reference linking to external databases, Full text HTML, Intra-document linking and Citing Articles lists.

Vendor Presentation

Enigma: Jack Perry, Director of Commercial Publishing -- Enigma's flagship product, INSIGHT, fully automates the publishing process by turning electronic source documents into intelligent electronic publications for simultaneous distribution on the Internet and CD-ROM. INSIGHT accepts SGML/XML data and outputs it to multiple formats and platforms, creating highly functional and searchable publications. For tonight's interactive presentation, Jack will demonstrate alternative online solutions for intelligent content publishing.

Keynote: Enterprise Information Portals and XML

March 16, 1999
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

Information is one of the most important assets--if not the most important one--of a modern-day company and XML is likely to become the general standard for the markup of information in web-based applications. Enterprise Information Portals (EIP) enable workers at all levels of an organization to get access to information on a personalized level. XML is a natural fit for EIPs as it provides an abstraction layer for all kinds of legacy data--on the level of metadata as well as actual data.

This presentation by Norbert Mikula, Director of Architectural Services at DataChannel, will discuss the problems of information distribution/contribution, approaches to this problem and the role XML does/will play.

Vendor Presentation

DataChannel RIO -- DataChannel RIO is a two-way Corporate Portal whereby Companies can effectively publish, share, distribute and manage their mission-critical knowledge.

Keynote: XML--Applications Beyond Publishing

January 12, 1999
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

For our 1999 kick-off presentation, Dr. Rita Knox, Vice President and Research Director at the Gartner Group, will offer her insights on the following:

The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is talked about for applications that go well beyond what is heard for SGML. This talk describes the foundational XML "family of standards" that makes this ubiquity possible, and highlights emerging and potential applications including a few of special interest to publishers.

Vendor Presentation

Interleaf, Inc., Tom Lovegrove, Vice President -- Interleaf, Inc. will demonstrate their groundbreaking XML application, BladeRunner.

BladeRunner is an Enterprise Content Management application that encompasses the entire content lifecycle, including content creation, content repository and publishing. Based on an XML data model, it is designed to improve the flow of information across organizations and facilitate business transactions. BladeRunner contains an object-oriented content repository that stores, maintains and manages XML content, DTD's, XSL stylesheets and related objects. XML documents are "burst" into discrete "chunks" when they are checked into the repository to facilitate reuse.

What Do You Get When You Cross SGML With a Database... and Multiply by 3?

June 1997
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

The June meeting of the SGML Forum of New York will focus on the growing field of SGML-based document management, featuring the first-ever side-by-side vendor demonstrations of the three leading SGML database/document management products.

Our keynote talk will be by Tom Comerford, Manager of Microstar Software's U.S. operations. Tom will help set the stage and provide the context for the afternoon's demonstrations.

Then you will hear about our three presenting companies. Each will briefly describe its background, market strategy, and future directions. The products and scheduled presenters are:

  • Chrystal Software: Astoria (Simon Nicholson)
  • Texcel Research: Information Manager (Amy Krane)
  • Xyvision: Parlance Document Manager (Mary McRae)

Next, you will see each one in action, demonstrated using sample SGML data and scenarios that we have provided. Our presenters will show you their products' capabilities in addressing these scenarios, illustrating the features and allowing you to make some direct comparisons. And we'll leave plenty of time at the end for questions & answers.

If you're already considering SGML document management, you can objectively assess which of these products meet your own requirements. If you're new to the subject, you will come away with a knowledge of the features and benefits of SGML-based document management, and will be ready to assess your organization's requirements. In both cases, you'll also have made contacts with all three vendors.

Seybold '97 in New York

April 22-24, 1997
Javits Center, New York

SGML Forum members took advantage of a 15% discount to admission to Seybold '97 at the Jacob Javits convention center.

SGML Free-for-All. An open-mike, Q&A session addressing SGML, XML. HTML and related topics. Moderated by Joy Blake, Director, Marketing, SGML University and Brian Travis, Chacellor, SGML University.

New Content Formats on the Desktop. Members of this panel, composed of publishers and document information specialists, presented their experiences and vision for creating and managing information to be used across any media. The discussion focused on the advantages and disadvantages of desktop publishing, professional publishing, SGML, XML, HTML and other technologies for managing and delivering information.

Moderator: Brian Travis, Chancellor, SGML University
Speakers:
-- Chet Ensign, author of $GML: The Billion Dollar Secret, and Manager, Data Architecture, Matthew Bender Inc.
-- Mary Fletcher LaPlante, Director, New Media Publishing, CAP Ventures
-- Dale Waldt, Vice President, Product Development, Research Institute of America and Publisher of TAG.

SGML Forum of New York Open House at Seybold '97. A chance to meet industry experts, hear some SGML success stories from our members and join in the drawing for some free books, software and other goodies.

SGML and the Future of the Web: XML and Other Alternatives

March 13, 1997
McGraw-Hill Building, New York

Presented by Christoper R. Maden, Inso Corportion/ Electronic Book Technologies, Inc. As a member of the XML Working Group, Maden brought first-hand insight into the standard's development, which has progressed rapidly. Following the presentation of draft XML syntax at SGML '96 in November, linking standards will be proposed at WWW6 in April, and the standard is expected to be finalized by Summer 1998. In support of its main objective--getting SGML onto the Web--XML focuses on simplicity of use and regularity of structure. Maden outlined its underlying design principles, including compatibility with SGML, ability to support a wide variety of applications, ease of writing programs to process XML documents, and human legibility. He then detailed the key changes from SGML that derive from these goals, including

  • a single, simplified concrete syntax with unlimited capacities and quantities
  • the concept of a "well formed" document--parsable but not necessarily valid
  • self-identifying empty elements
  • pre-defined entities and normalized entity references
  • normalized attribute value specifications
  • a formal comment syntax

Optional features, including LINK, OMITTAG and SHORTREF, have been eliminated from XML to the extent possible. XML linking--both internal and document-independent--derives from HyTime, and relies on URL standard addressing. Through the addition of extended linking groups and extended linking documents, Maden said, XML will permit "the hyperlinking ability of the Web [to] grow by several orders of magnitude."

As some of the changes listed above suggest, implications for legacy SGML data could be significant. However, Maden contended, XML's benefits for Web publishing will be liberating. Not only will HTML "no longer have to stretch [but simply] do what it's designed for," the Web will have "real hypertext," along with the ability to pass rich markup all the way to the end user. Maden believes that the introduction of XML marks a point of maturation for the Web, and that support will follow rapidly.

For the second half of the program Lori DeFurio of Adobe Systems Inc. presented FrameMaker/SGML solutions and Cynthia Shern of ArborText, Inc. discussed the prospect of technologies supporting XML.

First, Lori DeFurio of Adobe presented a FrameMaker+SGML case study in which Frame was used to support Web publishing.

Kodak's Technical and Training Communication Group had been working in SGML since 1988 (using WriterStation), and FrameBuilder since 1993. Using a single DTD, they wanted

  1. to create/edit in an SGML-compliant, WYSIWYG, hypertext environment
  2. to deliver print output in PostScript, and
  3. to deliver electronically via Acrobat, HTML, PostScript to faxback, DynaText, and/or Folio.

Cynthia Shern, a Technical Consultant at ArborText, Inc. spoke about her company's endorsement of, and planned support for, XML. It will offer a key publishing advantage, she pointed out, for companies seeking ISO 9001 compliance (and which therefore must maintain all data in a single source). ArborText foresees the emergence of XML tools that will create "well formed" markup without DTDs, but these will not make XML a threat to SGML, since the absence of DTDs would inhibit automation and document reuse. ArborText also foresees XML supporting high-content (or more highly formatted) Web publishing via interfaces to style sheets. Although both MS Explorer and Netscape Navigator selected CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), ArborText prefers (and promotes) DSSSL for presentation semantics.