Minutes – Z39.86 Advisory Committee Conference Call

Attendees

Advisory Committee:

• George Kerscher, Advisory Committee Chair – DAISY Consortium and Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
• Ole Holst Andersen – The Danish National Library for the Blind
• Neil Bernstein – National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
• Thomas Kjellberg Christensen – The Danish National Library for the Blind
• Marisa DeMeglio – DAISY for All Project
• Boris Goldowsky – CAST
• Markus Gylling – DAISY Consortium and Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille
• Rob. Longstaff – Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)
• James Pritchett – Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
• Lloyd Rasmussen – National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
• Daniel Weck –DAISY for All Project

Participating Experts:

• Kathy Kahl, Scribe – DAISY Consortium
• Dominic Labbé – HumanWare
• Lynn Leith – DAISY Consortium
• Diana Hiorth Persson – Dolphin
• Karen Wetzel – NISO

Apologies:

• Linus Ericson – Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille
• Neil Soiffer - Design Science

Agenda

The agenda for the call was distributed to the Advisory Committee list on September 4, with the proposed London FTF Meeting Agenda as an attachment. There was one addition to the agenda, being the SMIL Tiny Profile and Smil status inserted below.

Confirmation of Date and Time for Next Call

There will not be a conference call on September 19. The FTF meeting is October 1-2 in London. The next conference call is 2007 November 7, 0900 Eastern USA.

NISO

Introducing Karen Wetzel

Karen is Standards Program Manager at NISO, a position created in January as part of a large restructuring effect within the organization. Her responsibilities are to help facilitate communication between working groups, maintenance agencies, and topic committees, and to organize outreach and education programs related to NISO standards.

Guidance from Karen:

Review of maintenance agency agreement/terms of reference

NISO is trying to have more communication with maintenance agencies in terms of establishing regular communications and an actual document in place. In terms of revision coordination, there has been a change from a single standard development committee with oversight over all development agencies to an architecture committee, which provides broad oversight, plus three topic committees: 1) Business Information (e.g. licensing); 2) Discovery & Delivery; 3) Content and Collection Management, the last being where the Z39.86 DAISY Standard falls. With the reorganization, all existing NISO procedures have had to be redone and put in place, in accordance with NISO as an ANSI accredited organization. That being said, the NISO reorganization should not stand in the way of the DAISY Call for Revision. Karen stressed that "you should not pause in the process". The proposal for a revision of Z39.86 has been brought before the Content and Collection Management topic committee and there are no specific concerns. Ted Koppel is in charge of all of the different groups for the Content and Collection Management. Karen outlined that whereas there is a NISO requirement to have participation from a broad community, it essentially is a matter of what the maintenance agency would recommend and prefer. DAISY could publish the call for review in the NISO News, or ask for broader participation at a later date.

Call for Revision Consideration , where are we at in the NISO process

The approval process for NISO standards has been changed. The old requirement was that a majority of the NISO membership needed to vote, and 50% was needed to approve. This was always problematic, never having an appropriate sense of urgency so that it would get done. In terms of initial work, the updated process requires that 10% of the NISO membership needs to be interested in the work, and 15% is required for approval. Karen will confirm that the same process is in effect for a revision.

NISO representative in our group

As a maintenance agency, it is not required that we have a NISO representative as a member of the working group. As the revision moves forward, Karen would like to get more involved. She or a representative are invited and may join in on any of the meetings. Now that revisions and the maintenance agency are somewhat linked, the maintenance agency can also be the revision agency.

Call for Participation among NISO membership

After the FTF meeting in October, George suggests that we put an item in the NISO news for a call for participation in the committees, so as to be completely transparent. There is an overhaul of the NISO Web site scheduled to be completed about that time, which will also include improvements for accessibility.

Requirements Gathering Under NISO

George stated that whereas we are not exactly clear on how this revision is going to proceed, we think that NISO members should be aware that we are doing this work. Karen suggested coordinating through the NISO newsletter and email. Having a timeline and a deadline is suggested. The difference between the call for participation and the call for requirements should be made clear. When there is a draft for review, DAISY will follow the W3C process of putting out a final call. Karen would be the contact person for any NISO communications.

Karen pointed out that the next item she needs to help facilitate is the submission of a very brief form to the Content and Collection Management topic committee to officially inform ANSI that there is a Z39.86 revision coming. This should include an expected finish date.

SMIL Tiny Profile and the SMIL Standard (inserted agenda item)

The last call for comments on the revised SMIL specification is soon. Marisa outlined that most comments will be received after the deadline. It will not be too late to submit comments that may arise at the London FTF. Markus and Lloyd will follow the SMIL discussions closely. Any comments should be sent first to the Zed committee list, and then forwarded to the SMIL list. Markus raised the issue of not to have to work with a large SMIL profile with extra baggage, and brought up an example of SMIL text being included in the DAISY profile. Marisa clarified that this is included for video support, with captions, which DTBook is poorly suited to handle. Daniel raised the issue of access keys which is still a hot topic with the SMIL group.

Technical Lead

George raised the point that whereas he will continue to chair the working group, more continuous and detailed technical guidance will be required throughout the coming Z39.86 revision. There is no projected overlap of responsibilities between the Advisory Committee Chair and the Technical Lead. The Technical Lead would serve as a project coordinator of all the subcommittees, not as a lead technical decision maker. This should help our communications. This is similar to the W3C which normally has a staff member assigned as a technical lead to a working group. No objections were raised and no one else nominated themselves, Markus being acknowledged as a wise choice as Technical Lead.

Agenda Development for the Face-to-face meeting in London

The agenda below is considered quite full. Adjustments may be made up until start time. Since the Braille in DAISY considerations may impact the modularization in terms of the "single source file" concept, that topic should be moved up perhaps to the beginning of the second day, switching item 7 and 8 below.

Attachment 1: Proposed Agenda

Monday October 1, 9:00 a.m.

1. Welcome and meeting arrangements
   • scribing
   • capturing action items and project plans
2. Introductions
   • working group present
   • regrets
   • observers
3. Review of NISO process and status of this work
4. Profiles For Daisy - The modularization work (Marisa and Markus will co-chair and co-present)
   1. Intended Effects and Orientation - Markus, intro.
   2. Straw man
      • split in 2 groups, create separate straw man suggestions
        (Marisa and Markus lead one group each)
      • Comparison, synthesis, ending with an agreed upon straw man of profiles
        • Result shall include use cases per profile.
        • Result shall include as detailed as possible feature set specs per profile.

   LUNCH

5. Tools for profiling
   Theme: Daisy is a combination of multiple specifications. Which of the ones that we already use need modification, and which if any entirely new specifications do we need to include?
   1. The SMIL 3 DAISY Profile and SMIL Tiny Profile, would they support the above? (Marisa)
   2. Change requirements for DTBook
   3. Change requirements for NCX
   4. Change requirements for audio
   5. Entirely new specifications that need to be included?
6. Time plan and resources for continued work
   1. Human resources, what do we have and what do we need?
   2. Revisit Copenhagen overview time plan

   Tuesday October 2, 9:00 a.m.

7. SMIL 3 - Marisa will lead a review of the proposed SMIL specification.
   • Please read the proposed spec prior to the meeting.
8. Review of Braille in DAISY Working group submitted elements for consideration
   • modularization or incorporation into core of element set
9. Requirements Gathering
   • Discussion of the approaches to requirements gathering
10. Project Planning for the future.
    • Goal would be to have a clear project plan for the specification revision/development

Discussion: Is a conference call on September 19 needed?

There is not sufficient need for a conference call on September 19, outstanding maintenance issues being perhaps the only topic needing attention. Linus will help work on some of the issues, as well as James, and communicate via email.