1. The Office of the Historian’s Move to an Open Source XML Platform for Digital Publishing Joseph Wicentowski, Ph.D. wicentowskijc@state.gov

2. The Office of the Historian is… An Office in theU.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Public Affairs Dates back to the administration of Abraham Lincoln Staffed by 40+ professional historians, based in Washington, D.C.

3. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)

4. Before: Our Online Publications, 1996-2009

5. Initial Core Goals Break through the barriers that our existing content management system placed on getting our publications online Improve the user experience, including a better search engine

6. Revised Goals (To really do it right, let’s…) Make the right decisions now to minimize cost of change in the future Avoid proprietary technologies and device-specific formats. Go for open and archivally sound. Remain tolerant of idiosyncracies, while embracing standards Build on the best editorial traditions to deliver better reading and research

7. Enhance glossaries

8. Document Body: Shows relevant glossary entries

9. Mouse over a name to expand glossary entry

10. Improve the online footnote Footnotes in Print Footnotes online

11. Hover over footnote reference to view inline Footnotes in Print Footnotes online

12. Building on traditions… Enhance body content with reference content, such as glossaries Improve the online footnote Respect the integrity of the print publication even while delivering a great web experience Commit to consistent URLs Provide complete citations on every view Data visualization? – dynamic timelines and maps?

13. Data visualization – dynamic timelines, maps

14. Ambitious Goals!What format would allow us to achieve them? Break through the barriers that our existing content management system placed on getting our publications online Improve the user experience, including a better search engine Make the right decisions now to minimize cost of change in the future Avoid proprietary technologies and device-specific formats. Go for open and archivally sound. Remain tolerant of idiosyncrasies, while embracing standards Build on the best editorial traditions to deliver better reading and research Enhance body content with reference content, such as glossaries Improve the online footnote Respect the integrity of the print publication even while delivering a great web experience Commit to consistent URLs Provide complete citations on every view Data visualization? – dynamic timelines and maps?

15. XML!

16. XML!(umm… now what?)

17. We decided we needed to go XML… What next? Decide: which kind of XML? How to get content into XML? Software/platforms for XML solution? … we researched flavors of XML… we reviewed our own content … we prototyped … we developed encoding guidelines … we found conversion/encoding vendors … we researched XML platforms … we programmed, tested

18. history.state.gov (b. 2009)

19. We knew we needed XML… Our own answers Which kind of XML? … TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) How to get content into XML? … Outsource to encoding vendor … Our very paper-based source material led us to minimize impact on existing editorial workflow for new publications … Work with compositor to deliver XML … Gradually move into comprehensive XML-based editorial workflow Software/platforms for XML solution?

20. An Open Platform for XML Publishing eXist … free, open source native XML database … fast fulltext search engine + web server … active community … runs on Macs, PCs, Linux oXygen … commercial XML editor … swiss army knife of XML development XQuery … programming language for querying and manipulating XML … some prefer XSLT for transforming XML, but XQuery does it all

21. Agility with XML: Adapting to Unforeseen Requirements E-Readers and new formats like ePub … evolving formats Open Government Directive and data.gov … native XML databases as a strength in an era of government transparency Need to let our staff edit and annotate their TEI content in the browser … Making use of XForms and CKEditor

23. Print, Print on Demand

24. Digital Books (ePub)

26. TEI Annotator: Editing XML in the Browser

27. Win-Wins of an Open Platform Open standards Open source Active, responsive, generous community Contribute back to the community: patches, enhancements, and articles

28. Thank you! Questions? Visit us at http://history.state.gov Write to us at history@state.gov