COVAX
Contemporary Culture Virtual Archives in XML
COVAX has sought to connect diverse documents from libraries, archives, and museums, as well as their digital surrogates, to create a global search system. This makes it possible to search for distributed original documents in archives, libraries, and museums and make them accessible regardless of their location.
The system was based on the use of SGML (Standardized General Mark-Up Language) and various current DTDs (Document Type Definitions). Such DTDs are currently defined for libraries (MARC DTD – Machine Readable Code DTD), archives (EAD – Encoded Archival Description)), and museums (MUS-EAD). There is also the DTD created by the Text Encoding Initiative for marking electronic versions of texts containing cultural content. The use of SGML/XML enables standardization, interoperability, and connectivity between libraries, museums, and archives in the processing, retrieval, search, and retrieval of a wide variety of documents and records.
The use of XML (eXtended Mark-Up Language) allows for standardized distribution of originals on the Internet and worldwide access to these documents.
| Funding programme | IST-Programm – Information Society Technologies |
| Time frame | 1.1.2000 – 31.12.2001 |
| Coordinator | Residencia de Estudiantes, Madrid (E) |
| Partners | Software AG Espana, S.A. (Spain) Angewandte Informationstechnik mbH. (Austria) Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) University of Karlskrona/Ronneby (Sweden) Salzburg Research mbH (Austria) Biblioteca de Menendez Pelayo (Spain) London and South Eastern Library Region, which was replaced by South Bank University (United Kingdom) Ente per le Nuovetechnologie, I’Energia e l’Ambiente (Italy) |
| Publications | * Xml for libraries, archives, and museums: The project covax (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713827250) |