LINGUIST List 18.928: the Extra Mile

Eastern Michigan University

Wayne State University

LINGUIST List 18.928
Tue Mar 27 2007 Going: the Extra Mile Editor for this issue: Kevin Burrows <kevinlinguistlist.org>
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Directory 1. linguist, Project Manager Gayathri Sriram on 6.5 Years at LINGUIST 2. linguist, OLAC & Metadata ***************************************************************************** Fund Drive FLASH: We still need $40,685 to end Fund Drive. If you have not donated, please visit http://linguistlist.org/donate.html ***************************************************************************** Message 1: Project Manager Gayathri Sriram on 6.5 Years at LINGUIST
Date: 27-Mar-2007 From: linguist <linguistlinguistlist.org> Subject: Project Manager Gayathri Sriram on 6.5 Years at LINGUIST Dear Subscribers, I have been with LINGUIST for the last six and a half years, during this time I have worked on many projects as a programmer/tester/team leader/manager and I still cannot get enough of the challenges that seem to be thrown at me on a daily basis. All LINGUIST crew members like me face these daily challenges because LINGUIST has always been involved in developing ground-breaking work for the field of linguistics. Our web infrastructure allows linguists (students, professors, researchers) to familiarize themselves in handling language resources in a digital format. Best of all, the resources and services we provide have always been free of cost to subscribers, something that is unique to the field of linguistics. My background is in Information Systems, so most of my work involves database design and user-interface design for various LINGUIST projects. I also manage different teams that implement and test these projects before we make it available to you. Did you know that our web pages are tested on 18 different browser/OS configurations? Yes, this is a time consuming process, but we go the extra mile to ensure an optimal browsing experience for all users. We have 26 outstanding crew members (not including our visionary leaders who practically live in the LL office!) working on nearly 30 concurrent teams to ensure that our subscribers have access to the latest information, in an open/digital form, at no cost! Over the last few days, you have heard from all of us about our role in LINGUIST's special world. Hopefully this should help give you a picture of the ins and outs of our day-to-day life. LINGUIST not only provides free services to users, but also helps deserving students achieve their goal by funding them. Your donation is what enables LINGUIST to continue working on its mission. Please contribute to keep LINGUIST alive and well! Thank you, Gayathri Sriram Project Director, The LINGUIST List Message 2: OLAC & Metadata
Date: 27-Mar-2007 From: linguist <linguistlinguistlist.org> Subject: OLAC & Metadata Dear Subscribers, How many hours do you spend looking for information about a language that you are interested in? Granted, with the advent of powerful Internet search engines it may be a tad easier to find language documentation, but you still have to spend time skimming each resource or archive individually! Do you ever wish for a single place where you could find all the resources with a single search? Look no further, because LINGUIST and OLAC have made this possible for you. Please read on to see what we have in store. What is OLAC? The Open Language Archives Community, or OLAC, is an international partnership of institutions and individuals dedicated to collecting information about language resources?similar to a large library catalog?and making it accessible with a single search. The information is stored as metadata in XML format so that it is easily understood by the OLAC search engine. OLAC is also involved in developing standards on best practice for the digital archiving of language resources, see: http://linguistlist.org/olac/index.html http://www.language-archives.org/ What is metadata? Metadata is "data about data" or information about data. Metadata is a set of structured descriptions that are publicly available to assist in locating resources. Note that the data itself is not requested, so you still have full control over who sees it. OLAC uses the OLAC Metadata Set (OLACMS?which is in XML) for describing language resources. The OLACMS is equally applicable whether the resources are available online or not. The metadata set consists of all the elements of the Dublin Core Metadata Set along with a set of refinements and qualifications that are designed to describe fundamental properties of language resources, such as subject language, language data type, and software functionality. How is LINGUIST involved with OLAC? LINGUIST is hosting the "Union Catalog" of the Open Language Archives Community, which not only allows linguists to search OLAC through LINGUIST List, but also to become data providers for the project. Currently, you can search over 30,000 records in 35 linguistics-related archives, such as the Alaska Native Language Archive, PARADISEC, Ethnologue, and of course LINGUIST List Language archive! Please see the URL at: http://linguistlist.org/olac/olac-search-advanced.cfm Who is already a part of OLAC? OLAC has 35 participating archives from around the world: A Digital Archive of Research Papers in Computational Linguistics Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive (ASEDA) Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese Academia Sinica Formosan Language Archive Academia Sinica Tagged Corpus of Early Mandarin Chinese Alaska Native Language Center Archive Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America ATILF Resources Audio Archive of Linguistic Fieldwork Boiste Centre de Ressources pour la Description de l'Oral (CRDO) CHILDES Data Repository Comparative Corpus of Spoken Portuguese Cornell Language Acquisition Laboratory, CLAL DOBES Catalogue - OLAC 1.0 Ethnologue: Languages of the World European Language Resources Association?ISO639 ODIN?The Online Database of Interlinear Text Oxford Text Archive Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) Perseus Digital Library Rosetta Project 1000 Language Archive SIL Language and Culture Archives Surrey Morphology Group Databases Survey for California and Other Indian Languages TalkBank The LDC Corpus Catalog The LINGUIST List Language Resources The Natural Language Software Registry The Typological Database Project Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library TRACTOR Test Archive U Bielefeld Language Archive UQ Flint Archive Virtual Kayardild Archive How can you, as a linguist, get involved with OLAC? OLAC is encouraging linguists everywhere to submit information about what they have; that is, to become "a data provider'" Even if the resource itself is not available on the Internet?a collection of cassettes, for example?people will still be able to find out what resources exist and where to find them. To ensure that as many people as possible participate, there are three different ways to become a data provider: * The OLAC Repository Editor (ORE): If you are an individual with small projects, this method would be the simplest. ORE is a series of simple online forms. You can enter your information using these forms; this information is automatically converted into a format that the OLAC search engine can read. So, if you want your valuable information to be accessible to the entire linguistics community, please go to: http://linguistlist.org/olac/ore/index.html * Conventional Approach for large archives: If you have a catalog and programming skills, this is the best method. Here, you implement a software interface to your database, which creates the XML metadata and sends it to the OLAC search engine. For more on the Conventional Approach, please visit: http://www.language-archives.org/docs/implement.html#conventional * Static Repositories: If you know XML, this is a quicker way of providing data. If you can create an XML document yourself, and put it on a publicly-accessible website, and register your file with OLAC, your metadata is harvested and available to the OLAC search engine. The Static Repositories option is suitable for larger projects that have no pre-existing catalog database: http://www.language-archives.org/documents/implement.html#Static Would you like to join the OLAC community? To keep abreast of the latest developments within the OLAC community, or to help with the language resource archiving standardization procedure, you can join the OLAC-general mailing list at: http://www.language-archives.org/ We hope you find that the wealth of searchable language archives on our OLAC web site and elsewhere is useful and valuable. The smooth running of this complex site is due to the hardworking efforts of our student linguists and programmers. They get a rather unique education working at LINGUIST, which supports them in the form scholarships from the proceeds of our annual fund drive. So please show your appreciation of their efforts by making a donation to The LINGUIST List during Fund Drive 2007. We really appreciate your support! Sincerely, The LINGUIST Crew This Year the LINGUIST List hopes to raise $55,000. This money will go to help keep the List running by supporting all of our Student Editors for the coming year. See below for donation instructions, and don't forget to check out our Fund Drive 2007 LINGUIST List Superhero Adventure for some Fund Drive fun! http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/ There are many ways to donate to LINGUIST! You can donate right now using our secure credit card form. Alternatively you can also pledge right now and pay later. For all information on donating and pledging, including information on how to donate by check, money order, or wire transfer, please visit: http://linguistlist.org/donate.html The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Eastern Michigan University and as such can receive donations through the EMU Foundation, which is a registered 501(c) Non Profit organization. Our Federal Tax number is 38-6005986. These donations can be offset against your federal and sometimes your state tax return (U.S. tax payers only). For more information visit the IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial advisor. Many companies also offer a gift matching program, such that they will match any gift you make to a non-profit organization. Normally this entails your contacting your human resources department and sending us a form that the EMU Foundation fills in and returns to your employer. This is generally a simple administrative procedure that doubles the value of your gift to LINGUIST, without costing you an extra penny. Please take a moment to check if your company operates such a program. Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We would like to thank all of the publishers and subscribers who donated prizes for this year's Fund Drive games, puzzles, and competitions. Publisher Prize Donors: Cascadilla Press Continuum Edinburgh University Press Hodder Arnold Mouton de Gruyter Multilingual Matters Sage Publications Subscriber Prize Donors: Rusudan Amirejibi-Mullen Paola Attolino Cristiano Chesi Greville G. Corbett Rosa J. Garcia B. Cordova Gang Gu Suzette Haden Elgin Lise Menn Claus Dieter Pusch Sandra Thompson Thorsten Trippel Tom Zurinskas ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The LINGUIST List Hall of Fame SUPERHEROES ($1000 and over) HEROES ($100 to $1000) Akira Yamamoto Amira Agameya Andrea Berez Andrew Kehler anita fetzer Anna Kibort Arienne M. Dwyer Bernard Spolsky Bruce Fraser Carleton College Carlota Smith Carol Klee Carolyn Hartnett Cathy Sin Ping WONG Charles Scott Cinzia Russi Cynthia Edmiston Dan Finer and Ellen Broselow Danny Moates David Bowie Dorothy Disterheft Earl M Herrick Elizabeth Cowper Emily M. Bender Ernest McCarus Fiona Mc Laughlin Frances Trix Gerardo Lorenzino Hans Lindquist Heike Behrens Judith Fuller Julie Auger Kanjana Thepboriruk Karen Corrigan Karen Davis Katy Carlson Kemp Williams Keren Rice Laura Callahan Laura Wagner Manuela Noske Marisa Ferrara Boston Martin Haspelmath Mary Laughren Michael Swan Nigel Fabb Nikolaus Ritt Paul Chapin Peter Jurgec Richard Meier Rochelle Lieber Roger Shuy Sally McConnell-Ginet Sanford Steever Shanley Allen Stefan Th. Gries Surrey Morphology Group SMG Susanne Gahl Theresa Biberauer Tom Wasow Tucker Childs Ute Römer Victoria Muehleisen Wannie Carstens Wayles Browne Wendy Wilkins - Plus 4 anonymous donors SUPPORTERS ($50 to $100) Alison Gabriele Amaya Mendikoetxea Anke Lüdeling Anna Fowles-Winkler Anne Barron Anne Breitbarth Arsalan Kahnemuyipour Bencie Woll Brian King Britta Stolterfoht Carl Polley Catherine Fortin and Blake Howald Claire Bowern Dave Schneider Elisabeth COTTIER-FÁBIÁN fred cummins George Williams Grover Hudson Hsiang-Hua Chang Humphrey van Polanen Petel Jean Mulder Jennifer Cole Jie Zhang Jillian Mills Jo-Anne Ferreira Joan Baart Johanna Laakso Jose Camacho Jose-Luis Mendivil Joybrato Mukherjee Judith Meinschaefer Julia Herschensohn Keith Slater Kelly Vincent Kenneth Trease Klaus P. Schneider Kristin Denham Laura Downing Laura McGarrity Laurie Zaring Leslie Saxon Linguistics Program, Northeastern University Lisa Galvin Loraine K. Obler Maite Taboada Marc-Olivier Hinzelin Maria Blume marianne kilani-schoch Marianne Milligan Mary Dalrymple Marya Teutsch-Dwyer Michael Barrie Michael Wagner Morris Salkoff Neil Olsen Norvin Richards Oliver Stegen PAUL JUSTICE Pilar Barbosa Raphael Berthele Regina Morin Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero Rick Nouwen Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo Ron Moe Sara Rosen Scott G McGinnis Shlomo Izre'el Susan D Fischer Susan Meredith Burt Suzanne van der Feest Tobin Skinner Ulrike Christofori Wendy Bannister Xabier Artiagoitia Yael Sharvit Zinny Bond - Plus 5 anonymous donors DONORS (Up to $50) Agnes Sandor Akira Omaki Albin Jaques Ali Amy Isard Ana Ameal-Guerra Andrew Koontz-Garboden Anne Violin-Wigent Athanasios Giannaris Barbara McGillivray Benedetta Bassetti Bernard Kripkee Betty S. Phillips Catharina Peersman Catherine Anderson Chad Nilep Chris Evans Christopher Sams Corrine McCarthy Dalina Kallulli Dan Loehr Daniela Müller Diana Apoussidou don frantz Eileen Smith Elisabeth Norcliffe Erik Willis Eva Lavric Evelyn E. Feliciano Heidi Quinn Helmut Weiß Hortensia Curell Hugo Quene Igor Z. Zagar iris flannery J I Huettner Jacques Jayez Jakub Dotlacil James Kirkmeyer Jean-Marc Dewaele Jeffrey Heinz jenny battig Jila Ghomeshi Joanna Lowenstein K. David Harrison Kat Dziwirek Kathleen Currie Hall Kent Johnson Kristine Hildebrandt Kristine Veinberga Larry LaFond Liberty Lidz lisa levinson Loretta OConnor Marian Sloboda MARTIN Mary C. Gruber Maurice Wong Michael Pickering Mika Poss Nick Pendar Nynke de Haas Patience Epps Renae O'Hanlon Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi Robert Strong Sarah Murray Seth Cable Shahid Shannon Finch Shelley Tulloch Stefan Dollinger Suzanne Aalberse Suzanne Evans Wagner Takaomi Kato Talia Bugel Tamina Stephenson Tanya Sydorenko test pledge Theres Grueter Therese Carr Toshihiro Sugawara Tristan Purvis Ute Smit Vieri Samek-Lodovici WIM VANDENBUSSCHE, VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL Wini Davies - Plus 17 anonymous donors **************************************************** MAJOR SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/ Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd http://www.continuumbooks.com Edinburgh University Press http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/ European Language Resources Association - ELRA http://www.elra.info. Georgetown University Press http://www.press.georgetown.edu Hodder Arnold http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/ http://www.benjamins.nl/ Lincom GmbH http://www.lincom.eu www.lincom.eu Mouton de Gruyter http://www.mouton-publishers.com Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/ Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us http://www.oup.co.uk Pagijong Press http://pjbook.com Palgrave Macmillan http://www.palgrave.com Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com Rodopi http://www.rodopi.nl/ http://www.rodopi.nl Springer http://www.springer.com OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS CSLI Publications http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/ International Pragmatics Assoc. http://www.ipra.be Linguistic Assoc. of Finland http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/ Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT http://www.lotpublications.nl/ SIL International http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp St. Jerome Publishing Ltd. http://www.stjerome.co.uk **************************************************** INSTITUTIONS BAE Systems Basis Technology Basis Technology Corporation BeVocal, Inc Boston University Bridgewater State College Butler Hill Group CELI s.r.l. City University of Hong Kong Comcast Concordia University Darmstadt University of Technology Dongduk Women's University English School Sunny Plus Grove City College Gyeonggi English Village Hablamos Juntos - UCSF Haskins Laboratories Hokkaido University Humboldt Universität zu Berlin Indiana University Indiana University - Bloomington Ingenuity Systems Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt/Main Johns Hopkins University Kent State University KNOVA Software, Inc. La Trobe University LearnBalance Group Leibniz Universität Hannover Lexicon Branding, Inc. Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania Louisiana State University Maher Language Institute (MLI) McGill University McNeil Technologies, Inc. Michigan State University Monterey Institute of International Studies National Sun Yat-sen University National Taiwan Normal University Nemours/AI duPont Hospital for Children Nordic CoE in Microcomparative Syntax Northwestern University Nuance Communications, Inc. Q-go Netherlands bv Radboud University Nijmegen RiverGlass, Inc. Royal Museum for Central Africa RPI RWTH Aachen San Diego State University SDL International Seattle Pacific University Shenandoah University Simon Fraser University SOAS, University of London Stony Brook University Systran SYSTRAN S.A. SYSTRAN Software, Inc. The Australian National University The State University of New York at Buffalo Tuebingen University Tufts University UCSC University College London University of Aberdeen University of Alaska Fairbanks University of Alberta University of Arizona University of British Columbia University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) University of California, San Diego University of California, Santa Barbara University of Chicago University of Cologne University of Delaware University of Edinburgh University of Essex University of Geneva University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts University of Hamburg (Germany) University of Leeds University of Mary Washington University of Maryland University of Maryland University College University of Michigan University of Mississippi University of Missouri-Rolla University of Neuchatel University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China University Of Oregon University of Oxford University of Pittsburgh University of Potsdam University of Texas at San Antonio University of Trento (Italy) University of Tromsø University of Utah University of Wales, Bangor University of Washington University of Wolverhampton University of York Université Laval Voice Signal Technologies, Inc, Wake Forest University Wayne State University Yuan Ze University ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Respond to list\|Read more issues\|LINGUIST home page\|Top of issue

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