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Appendix B
Finding Sources for SGML Know-How

Often, you’ll run into some SGML task that is beyond your current abilities. At times like these, you need help. This appendix lists some resources that can answer your questions.

This appendix tells you:

•  What books can help you
•  What periodicals you can subscribe to that might help
•  What groups meet regularly that you could join
•  What Internet resources are available

Books on SGML

You’ll be happy to learn that the SGML book market is becoming bigger and better. It wasn’t long ago when you couldn’t ask someone in a bookstore what HTML was, and now everyone knows. And they’re learning about SGML, so the bookshelves are collecting more help from which to choose. Here’s a list of books that you should consider:

•  ABCD…SGML: A User’s Guide to Structured Information, by Liora Alschuler.
•  A HyTime Application Development Guide, by Ralph Ferris of Fujitsu Open System Solution, Inc. Freely available by anonymous FTP at ftp.techno.com/pub/HyTime/application_development_guide.
•  Making Hypermedia Work, by Steven J. DeRose and David Durand. Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
•  Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, by Grady Booch. Redwood City, California: Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co.
•  Object-Oriented Modeling and Design, by James Rumbaugh and Michael Blaha, William Premerlani, Frederick Eddy, and William Lorensen. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
•  Practical Hypermedia, by Eliot Kimber; edited by Dr. Charles F. Goldfarb. Published by Simon & Schuster.
•  Practical SGML, by Eric van Herwijnen.
•  SGML: An Author’s Guide to the Standard Generalized Markup Language, by Mark Bryan.
•  The SGML Handbook: The Annotated Full Text of ISO 8879—Standard Generalized Markup Language, by Dr. Charles F. Goldfarb.
•  The SGML Implementation Guide: A Blueprint for SGML Migration, by Brian E. Travis and Dale C. Waldt.
•  The SGML Primer, by SoftQuad Inc.
•  SGML Source Guide, compiled by the Graphics Communications Association (GCA).
•  Standard Generalized Markup Language, available through American National Standards Institute (ANSI) at 11 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036, (212) 642-4900.

While this is not a comprehensive list of books, these additions to your library will answer nearly any questions you might have. There are also many private sources for SGML publications. Robin Cover keeps a list of references and abstracts for over 1000 books that are updated regularly at the following Web page:

http://www.sil.org/sgml/biblio.html

SGML Periodicals

Periodicals on the subject of SGML have been notoriously academic and scholastic. But they still contain information that will help you through rough spots in your development. Here’s a list of periodicals:

The Seybold Report on Publishing Systems
Seybold Publications, Inc.
428 East Baltimore Ave.
Media, PA 19063
USA
Telephone: (800) 325-3830 or (610) 565-6864
E-mail: sedwards@sbexpos.com
The SGML User’s Group Newsletter
Database Publishing Systems, Ltd.
608 Delta Business Park, Great Western Way
Swindon Wiltshire SN5 7XF
UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone: +441 793 512 515
Fax: +44 793 512 516
E-mail: kp@dpsl.co.uk
<TAG>: The SGML Newsletter
Published by SGML Associates, INC.
6360 S. Gibraltar Circle
Aurora, CO 80016-1212
USA
Telephone: (303) 680-0875
Fax: (303) 680-4906
E-mail address: tag@sgml.com

Tip:  
Sometimes periodicals about SGML come and go, so you might keep an eye out on the Internet newsgroup comp.txt.sgml.

SGML User Groups

There are probably still more user groups for the Commodore C-64 personal computer than there are SGML user groups, but most likely that will change over time. These are the most widely known large user groups:

Electronic Publishing Special Interest Group (EPSIG)
EPSIG Membership Office
100 Daingerfield Rd., 4th floor
Alexandria, VA 22314-2888
USA
Telephone: (703) 519-8184
E-mail: epsig@aol.com
Graphic Communications Association (GCA)
(Printing Industries of America)
Graphic Communications Association
Attention: Marion Elledge (Director, Information Technologies)
100 Daingerfield Road, 4th Floor
Alexandria, VA 22314-2888
USA
Telephone: (703) 519-8160
E-mail: sgml95@aol.com
International SGML Users’ Group (SGMLUG)
SGML Users’ Group,
Database Publishing Systems, Ltd.
608 Delta Business Park, Great Western Way
Swindon, Wiltshire SN5 7XF
UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone: +441 793 512 515
Fax: +44 793 512 516
E-mail: kp@dpsl.co.uk
SGML Hypertext and Multimedia SIG (SIGhyper)
Erik Naggum, Chairman
Naggum Software
Irisveien 12
POB 1570 Vika
0118 Oslo
NORWAY
Telephone: +47 2295 0313
Fax: +47 2216 2350
E-mail: erik@naggum.no
FTP: ftp.ifi.vio.no/pub/sgml/SIGhyper
SGML Open
SGML Open Headquarters
910 Beaver Grade Road, #3008
Coraopolis, PA 15108
USA
Telephone: (412) 264-4258
Internet: laplante@sgmlopen.org
(or) sgmlopen@prep.net
The SGML Project
c/o Univ. of Exeter IT Services, Laver Building
North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QE
UNITED KINGDOM
Telephone: +441 0392-263-946
E-mail: sgml@exeter.ac.uk

These sources will certainly point you in the right direction for finding a user group that meets your needs. You might also check the local newspaper and computer magazines for user group advertisements.

Internet Resources

One nice benefit to using the Internet is that all the varied types of resources you have to deal with are connected in some way. If one Gopher site doesn’t work out for you, then maybe it will at least point you to UseNet or FTP site.

New SGML resources appear on the Internet rather frequently, so this is by no means a complete list. These resources fall into four main categories:

•  Internet mailing lists
•  Internet newsgroups
•  FTP archives
•  Internet Web pages

Internet Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are mostly automated nowadays, so when you include a key phrase as indicated below, the mail server automatically strips out your e-mail address and adds it to the mailing list. Except for technical or network problems, you should receive an automated reply back within a day or two after subscribing to a LISTSERV. When in doubt whether to put the quoted key phrase in the body of the e-mail or in the subject line, put it in both locations. (Don’t include quotation marks.) If you make a mistake, the listserver will usually notify you of the error and request you to resubscribe.

SGML-AUSTIN
Mail: “info sgml-austin” to majordomo@hal.com
SGML-L: SGML-L mailing list
Mail: “review SGML-L” to listserv@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de
TEI-L: TEI-L mailing list
Mail: “subscribe tei-l” in body of e-mail to listserv@uicvm.uic.edu
SGMLBELU: Belgian-Luxembourgian SGML Users Group Reading List
Mail: “review SGMLBELU” to listserv@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be
The NEWSWIRE: An SGML Mailing List sponsored by Avalanche
E-mail to: sgmlinfo@avalanche.com with a message requesting subscription
DSSSL LITE: Discussion group on creating subset of DSSSL
Mail “subscribe dsssl-lite YOUR-USERID@YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS” to dsssl-lite@falch.no
COMP-STD-SGML: Erik Naggum’s discussion list for SGML esoterica
Mail: comp-std-sgml-request@naggum.no with the word “subscribe” somewhere in the message
SGML-INTERNET: EBT’s mailing list for SGML Open
Mail: “subscribe sgml-internet yourID@site.domain” in body of e-mail to sgml-internet-owner@ebt.com
RAINBOW: Rainbow Mailing List
For subscription information, send e-mail to: rainbow@ebt.com
SGMLBLGA: SGML Belux Users Group General Assembly Mail
Mail “review SGMLBLGA” to: listserv@cc1.kuleuven.ac.be

Internet Newsgroups (UseNet)

Currently, there is only one newsgroup, but it is an excellent one:

COMP.TEXT.SGML

There is also a topic-threaded digest of all the questions and comments posted to this group. To request a subscription, contact comp-text-sgml-request@naggum.no.

FTP Archive Sites for SGML

While there are many FTP sites with SGML information and resources, these are the most reliable (you can tell from the address if the resource is accessible through the World Wide Web):

•  ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML
•  ftp://info.ex.ac.uk/pub/SGML
•  ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/text/sgml
•  gopher://ftp.sunet.se/11/pub/text-processing/sgml
•  ftp://ftp.jclark.com/pub
•  ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/sgml
•  ftp://ftp-tei.uic.edu/pub/tei
•  ftp.ota.ox.ac.uk/TEI/

SGML Web Pages

Some of these Web pages require an SGML-capable Web browser, such as Panorama. Others are accessible through any HTML Web browser. The extension on the Web page will tell you whether the following resources are HTML or SGML files.

Jump Pages to Other Collections of Links. Like so many subjects available for study on the World Wide Web, SGML has numerous resources that could quickly inundate you if you did a search for “SGML” from a popular search engine. These collections of links will direct you to some useful materials.

•  http://www.sil.org/sgml/archsite.html
•  http://hike1.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/ikeda/documentation/SGML-home.html
•  http://www.sgmlopen.org/

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). FAQs are useful especially to newer students of SGML, but they often contain some creative insights for everyone else, too. They are normally maintained by individuals who volunteer their time just because of their enthusiasm for SGML and their desire to help.

•  ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/FAQ.0.0
•  gopher://sil.org/11gopher_root%3a%5bsgml.sgml_faq%5d
•  ftp://info.ex.ac.uk/pub/SGML/faq
•  ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/FAQ

Summary

The resources mentioned in this appendix are just a start. SGML resources are cropping up all the time, so it’s best just to keep track of the major indexes that track new resources; that’s what these do. When something important happens in the SGML world, it usually appears in these pages pretty quickly.


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