[Isis-users] UNESCO's ISIS support

[De Smet Egbert]

Dear colleagues,

at the end of March we had a meeting at UNESCO, for which up to today still no formal report (to be authorized by UNESCO... sorry !) was available. For this reason I have not yet reported about it at all - bear with me please.

Today I got, after some insisting from my side, a reply from Mr. Banerjee, Director of the Knowledge Societies Division of UNESCO.

Here is his reply, certainly positive and giving some hope for improvement of UNESCO's support, which I quote literally  :

" Dear Dr De Smet,

During your meeting with me, Davide and the other Isis experts at
UNESCO, we have agreed on the following three actions:

- Help the Isis Community to organize itself as an international
association or a foundation, bearing in mind the several attempts that
were done in the past. This help could come from the Open Source world
in particular from the recent experience of LibreOffice and the newly
created Document Foundation.

- Organize an international public event on Isis at UNESCO: after the 3
world meetings in Latin America, mainly organized by BIREME/PAHO, that
would be the first time that UNESCO hosts a public international event
on Isis in Paris. The occasion could be the 20th anniversary of the
adoption of Isis at the Ecole du Louvre.

- Work on the "image" of Isis through a restyling of UNESCO's Isis page
which would put forward the different ongoing Isis activities/projects
worldwide (mainly: the ABCD software, J-Isis and FAO's AlphaIsis).

Since then, Davide has worked with our Web Team in order to prepare the
Isis web Page which has not been updated as you know since a very long
time. Clearly this exercise does not take much time per se but, as the
whole UNESCO CI Sector web is being migrated on a new (Open Source) CMS
the Web Team is overwhelmed and was not able to make it. I have asked
Davide to take care himself of the migration/update of the webpage: I am
sure he will rapidly come up with an up-to-date site. I also asked him
to call upon the Isis Community for posting Isis related news on the
website.

Concerning the creation of an International Association for Isis, Davide
got in touch with the Document Foundation people. At the end of May they
will come to UNESCO for an expert meeting on languages and we'll be able
to discuss with them about this subject.

Davide has also contacted FAO in order to know more about their
AlphaIsis project whose license terms has still to be cleared by FAO.

As for the event, I am asking Davide to get in touch with the Ecole du
Louvre as well as you, the Isis Community and other potential partners
(Bireme?, FAO?) to see the possibilities for organizing such a user
meeting, giving our budgetary constraints.

We are very much committed not to leaving Isis and the Isis Community
and we look forward to working together with this Community towards a
sustainable future for Isis.

Best regards,

Indrajit  Banerjee "

Egbert de Smet
Antwerpen, Belgium