cords, librarians and publishers
began working on a convergence between MARC and SGML. The Library of
Congress worked on a DTD (Definition of Type of Document, which defines
its logical structure) for the USMARC format. A DTD for the UNIMARC
format was developed by the European Union. Some European libraries
chose SGML to encode their bibliographic data. In the Belgian Union
Catalog, for example, the use of SGML allowed to add descriptive
elements and to facilitate the production of an annual CD-ROM.

1984: COPYLEFT

[Overview]

The term "copyleft" was invented in 1984 by Richard Stallman, who was a
computer scientist at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
"Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free,
and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be
free as well. (...) Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the
software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to
further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has
freedom. (...) Copyleft is a way of using of the copyright on the
program. It doesn't mean abandoning the copyright; in fact, doing so
would make copyleft impossible. The word 'left' in 'copyleft' is not a
reference to the verb 'to leave' -- only to the direction which is the
inverse of 'right'. (...) The GNU Free Documentation License (FDL) is a
form of copyleft intended for use on a manual, textbook or other
document to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and
redistribute it, with or without modifications, either commercially or
non commercially." (excerpt from the GNU website)

1990: WEB

[Overview]

The internet got its first boost with the invention of the web and its
hyperlinks by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle
Physics) in 1990, and a second boost with the invention of the first
browser Mosaic in 1993. The internet could now be used by anyone, and
not only by computer literate people. There were 100 million internet
users in December 1997, with one million new users per month, and 300
million internet users in December 2000. In summer 2000, the number of
non-English-speaking users reached the number of English-speaking
users, with a percentage of 50-50. According to Netcraft, an internet
services company, the number of websites went from one million (April
1997) to 10 million (February 2000), 20 million (September 2000), 30
million (July 2001), 40 million (Apri