Message from Norman Paskin re DOI activities

[Norman Paskin <N.Paskin@DOI.org>]

To NISO DOI mail list

Hi folks

The purpose of this posting is to inform you of plans for DOI and request
your involvement, following my appointment as Director of the
International DOI Foundation. It covers these points:

1. Please hold May 6/7 in your schedule!
2. Membership of the Foundation 
3. Development issues: FAQs.  
4. Development issues: Working groups 
5. Invited comments on any aspect

The rest of this posting gives details on each of these items.

1. May 6/7.  We are planning to hold a one or two day DOI workshop,
provisionally scheduled for May 6/7 in Reston, VA (at CNRI) to bring
together all interested parties to discuss the DOI and its development.  
The format of the NISO DOI workshop days proved very successful and
we want to build on those.  I need your help in defining the content and
format of the meeting: let me know your preferences for format and
suggestions for issues to be dealt with.  
- main open session plus break-out working groups e.g. metadata,
policies, etc.?
- detailed handle technology update and run-through with CNRI?
- demonstration of handle technology in other areas e.g. music, image?
- discussion of potential application pilots?
Details of the meeting will be posted on doi.org as soon as we refine our
plans.
 
I am also considering the possibilities for a European meeting (comments
welcome); we have an invitation from The European Commission to hold a
strategic meeting, and are considering a European technical developer
meeting (as was held on Dec 10 at Sun in New York last year).

2. Membership details and application forms are now posted on the
doi.org web site at http://www.doi.org/membership/brochure.html.     If
your organization is interested in DOIs as a future enabling technology I
urge you to give serious consideration to joining the Foundation.  We
want to do many things and need funding in addition to voluntary effort to
drive the program further.  You do not need to be a Foundation member to
attend the May 6/7 meetings, but you?d be even more welcome!  (We?ll be
enhancing the web site with other material too: a list of presentations and
links to related organisations is about to appear there.  Suggestions for
otehr useful enhancements welcome).

3. Development issues are a high priority.  Membership concerns will
drive our priorities list.  One way to do this is to develop FAQs: those we
have answers to will be posted on our site; those we don?t have
answers to will be fed into the working groups and other development
activities, with the aim of developing satisfactory answers a.s.a.p.    I?d
welcome questions from you: business, technical or otherwise, with or
without suggested answers.

4. Working groups.  Our membership invitation specifies participation in
various working groups:  these will be developing continuations of some
of the active groups set up under NISO.  I hope the chairs of those
groups will want to continue and I?ll be contacting each individually soon. 
Working groups will include non-members where appropriate; we can set
up separate e mail discussion groupos where needed.  Some issues will
continue to be addressed by related organisations (e.g. DOI syntax is
also being discussed by NISO) and I am in regular contact with Joel Baron
re the transition of some activities from NISO to the Foundation.

5. Comments on any aspect of the DOI initiative are welcome; either in
public to this DOI mail list, or in confidence directly to me at
n.paskin@doi.org.  I can only steer the Foundation with the help of the
community.  I need to know the issues you want us to tackle. 

My thanks to those of you who have mailed me personally since the
announcement of my role.  For information, I plan to spend up to 50% of
my time in the US over the next few months.


Norman Paskin, Director, The International DOI Foundation			
n.paskin@doi.org				
				
(UK): Tel: (+44) 1865 843798   Fax: (+44) 1865 843967

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