Everybody is very excited, when they first make interworld contact. It's not at all how the people of þereminia were expecting to find aliens — but, of course, it's not strange that aliens would be outside of their expectations.

The first things through the portal are various attempts at establishing a common basis for a language, and then various dictionaries, scientific charts, messages from linguists, etc. Another story might get into the gritty details of how two peoples completely foreign to one another managed to establish a shared language and understanding.

This story, on the other hand, starts with a letter:

To the people or organizations responsible for media archival,

Greetings! I am so glad to be able to contact you. I am Zoshteli, the Head Archivist of the Archive, þereminia's great repository of written works. I am writing to you for a few reasons:

First of all, I would like to discuss terms for exchanging works between our[ex] Archive and your equivalent institution, in order to ensure that if disaster strikes we[in] will have more redundant storage of our[in] civilizations' works, and to promote easier access to our[in] civilizations' literature. We[ex] have a number of works that are only possible to archive under various conditions — and I am sure the case is the same on your side — so I would like to sort out how to meet each others' standards. For example, we[ex] have some historical works that can only be read by certain groups of people, some modern works that have complicated laws involving handling in and transmission to different jurisdictions, some works that are sealed until the author's death that we would nonetheless like to back up while under seal, etc.

Secondly, I have been unable to get much detail from the translators on your indexing or curatorial systems. If our worlds are to begin exchanging works, we will probably need to institute some consistent system of metadata — at the very least to make sure authorship information can be included correctly.

Please do let me know what you think, and to whom I should address further letters. And, if this letter has reached you and responding does not seem to be your job, please do forward it to wherever is appropriate.

Sincerely yours, and with hope for a long and fruitful collaboration,

Zoshteli, Head Archivist

Everybody is very excited, when they first make interworld contact. It's not at all how the people of þereminia were expecting to find aliens — but, of course, it's not strange that aliens would be outside of their expectations.

The first things through the portal are various attempts at establishing a common basis for a language, and then various dictionaries, scientific charts, messages from linguists, etc. Another story might get into the gritty details of how two peoples completely foreign to one another managed to establish a shared language and understanding.

This story, on the other hand, starts with a letter:

To the people or organizations responsible for media archival,

Greetings! I am so glad to be able to contact you. I am Zoshteli, the Head Archivist of the Archive, þereminia's great repository of written works. I am writing to you for a few reasons:

First of all, I would like to discuss terms for exchanging works between our[ex] Archive and your equivalent institution, in order to ensure that if disaster strikes we[in] will have more redundant storage of our[in] civilizations' works, and to promote easier access to our[in] civilizations' literature. We[ex] have a number of works that are only possible to archive under various conditions — and I am sure the case is the same on your side — so I would like to sort out how to meet each others' standards. For example, we[ex] have some historical works that can only be read by certain groups of people, some modern works that have complicated laws involving handling in and transmission to different jurisdictions, some works that are sealed until the author's death that we[ex] would nonetheless like to back up while under seal, etc.

Secondly, I have been unable to get much detail from the translators on your indexing or curatorial systems. If our worlds are to begin exchanging works, we will probably need to institute some consistent system of metadata — at the very least to make sure authorship information can be included correctly.

Please do let me know what you think, and to whom I should address further letters. And, if this letter has reached you and responding does not seem to be your job, please do forward it to wherever is appropriate.

Sincerely yours, and with hope for a long and fruitful collaboration,

Zoshteli, Head Archivist

Everybody is very excited, when they first make interworld contact. It's not at all how the people of þereminia were expecting to find aliens — but, of course, it's not strange that aliens would be outside of their expectations.

The first things through the portal are various attempts at establishing a common basis for a language, and then various dictionaries, scientific charts, messages from linguists, etc. Another story might get into the gritty details of how two peoples completely foreign to one another managed to establish a shared language and understanding.

This story, on the other hand, starts with a letter:

To the people or organizations responsible for media archival,

Greetings! I am so glad to be able to contact you. I am Zoshteli, the Head Archivist of the Archive, þereminia's great repository of written works. I am writing to you for a few reasons:

First of all, I would like to discuss terms for exchanging works between our[ex] Archive and your equivalent institution, in order to ensure that if disaster strikes we[in] will have more redundant storage of our[in] civilizations' works, and to promote easier access to our[in] civilizations' literature. We[ex] have a number of works that are only possible to archive under various conditions — and I am sure the case is the same on your side — so I would like to sort out how to meet each others' standards. For example, we[ex] have some historical works that can only be read by certain groups of people, some modern works that have complicated laws involving handling in and transmission to different jurisdictions, some works that are sealed until the author's death that we[ex] would nonetheless like to back up while under seal, etc.

Secondly, I have been unable to get much detail from the translators on your indexing or curatorial systems. If our[in] worlds are to begin exchanging works, we[in] will probably need to institute some consistent system of metadata — at the very least to make sure authorship information can be included correctly.

Please do let me know what you think, and to whom I should address further letters. And, if this letter has reached you and responding does not seem to be your job, please do forward it to wherever is appropriate.

Sincerely yours, and with hope for a long and fruitful collaboration,

Zoshteli, Head Archivist