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Now that we all seem to be moving in the direction of understanding and implementing SGML mark-up, I am going to open a can of worms about a further step in making finding aids usable...namely: Character Normalization In the development of our Finding Aids site at Yale, we were happy to realize that we could code non-Latin (extended) characters=20 so they would appear properly, thanks to the Special Characters Entity component. When our finding aids were online, we tested the search interface and found that, indeed, we could find extended characters by keying-in ASCII number sequences (e.g. Alt-130 =3D =E9). However, the wind left our sails when we realized that this was the ONLY way to search extended characters. Therefore, a researcher looking through our collection of Goethe manuscripts will have to learn to type like a programmer to find all of the relevant names= she desires. Knowing that there are other problems that arise, such as an inconsistency in using extended characters, and local practice, I wonder if anyone has any advice/direction/comments on what can be done as far as what I refer to as "character normalization". I envision a system that - on the search interface - is able to map all accented versions of Latin characters to their unaccented equivalents. (e.g. - =E9, =EB, etc. would map to e) Is this the way to go? Is anybody aware of a system that can do such a normalization? Our default strategy is to do what we have done with our in-house database - keep a "printable" version with extended characters - and create a database version with extended characters stripped out and replaced by Latin equivalents. Any response would be welcome, even regarding correct terminology for this question. Timothy Young Archivist Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Yale University New Haven, CT 06520 (203) 432-8131