Preserving State Government Digital Information:
Core Legislative XML Schema working group meetings
Overview of XML Schema Working Group
Members of the XML Schema Working Group include representatives from the Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota Office of Revisor of Statutes, XMaLpha Technologies, and Thomson Reuters. This working group was created out of discussions in a Minnesota Partners meeting, who felt that creating an XML schema would be beneficial.
The XML Working Group met in person as necessary from June 2008-September 2010 and used Basecamp (a project management tool) to keep in kept in contact and share files and ideas throughout this time.
The result of these meetings is a legislative metadata schema and a wrapper prototype used to associate said metadata with Minnesota bill files. The schema was used in a variety of contexts. Minnesota used it in conjunction with the wrapper prototype; it was used by the California Legislative Counsel to associate metadata as they digitized California bill files; and it was used as both associated metadata and as part of the wrapper when testing the ingest, search and preservation functions of Tessella's Safety Deposit Box.
Schema
Wrapper Protocol
- Article on Wrapper Prototype; for more information contact Tim Orr at the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes.
Sample Documents
These sample bill documents from Minnesota and California use both the schema and wrapper.
- Minnesota Bill Example (PDF)
- California Bill Example (PDF)
September 23, 2010 Meeting
Overview
This meeting was to discuss minor proposed changes to the wrapper schema.
Meeting Materials and Information
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
August 20, 2010 Meeting
Overview
This meeting was to discuss the wrapper prototype that was developed, recent changes made by Dan Dodge, and to address any concerns and determine the next steps for this portion of the NDIIPP project.
Meeting Materials and Information
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
February 2010 Article Published
Overview
An article about the "XML Wrapper" written by two members of the XML Schema Working Group (Tim Orr and Isaac Holmlund) was featured in the National Association of Legislative Information Technology's Winter 2010 Newsletter.
January 8, 2010 Meeting
Overview
This meeting was to discuss the wrapper prototype that was developed, address any concerns and determine the next steps for this portion of the NDIIPP project. The prototype was demonstrated followed by discussion.
Meeting Materials and Information
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
June 25, 2009 Presentation
Overview
The Library of Congress hosted a conference of all NDIIPP partners in Washington DC on June 24-26. Team members participated and gave a presentation about the legislative metadata schema developed by the XML Working Group.
Presentation Slides
- Metadata and Minnesota's Legislative Documents Presentation Slides (PDF)
March 6, 2009 Meeting
Overview
The first draft of the XML wrapper schema was complete in January 2009. Workgroup members made comments and suggests which cumulated in another face-to-face meeting focused on how to account for schemas within the wrapped bills.
A schema registry was identified as a workable approach and an additional metadata tag, catalog ID, will be added to the wrapper to allow for schema references in such a registry in the future, though it was deemed unnecessary for the proof of concept. Please review the meeting summary for the complete discussion.
Meeting Materials and Information
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
October 29, 2008 Meeting
Overview
The Minnesota Historical Society met with representatives from the Minnesota Office of Revisor of Statutes and Thomson Reuters to review the metadata crosswalk and determine which elements would be needed for legislative records. The group also reviewed a proposed XML core schema.
Following the meeting, the metadata crosswalk was updated for Minnesota legislative records and the XML core schema will be tested using legislative data from Minnesota and California.
Meeting Materials and Information
- Agenda (PDF)
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
September 12, 2008 Meeting
Overview
The Minnesota Historical Society met with representatives from the Minnesota Office of Revisor of Statutes and Thomson Reuters to discuss the idea of a standardized XML schema for legislative records.
The participants discussed that creating a standardized XML schema for bill drafting systems is problematic for a number of reasons. Instead, a more feasible approach would be an XML wrapper for legislative information exchange, which would contain a standard set of metadata elements as well as legislative data in original formats (e.g., Word, XML) and any other instances (e.g., PDF , HTML).
Meeting Materials and Information
- Agenda (PDF)
- Meeting Minutes (PDF)
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
June 6, 2008 Meeting
Overview
The Minnesota Historical Society met with representatives from the Minnesota Office of Revisor of Statutes, XMaLpha Technologies, and Thomson Reuters to begin developing an XML schema for state legislative content.
The participants discussed the nature and scope of the proposed XML schema for this project's immediate partners, but they also gave consideration to possible long-term outcomes of a practicable schema.
Meeting Materials and Information
- Agenda (PDF)
- Meeting Participants (PDF)
- Meeting Summary (PDF)
- Presentation Slides (PDF) by Bob Horton, Minnesota Historical Society
- Observations (PDF) by Minnesota Revisor's Office staff on their XML schema for bills
December 5, 2011; links updated January 19, 2011
