Editing Correspondence

The in TEI

Historical Documents, Digital ApproachesGhent, 5 Sept. 2013

Van Nu en Straks – The Letters

http://www.vnsbrieven.org/

‘Van Nu en Straks. The Letters’: What?

� 1419 letters: main part in Dutch, 180 in French� Reference to

– 2,500 persons– 500 place names– 1,000 book titles– 650 written articles– 350 poems etc.

� 3,600 internal links� Critical and diplomatic transcription of all the letters� Detailed description of metadata� More than 3,000 digital facsimile pictures

� Browsing and searching� Viewing and exporting selections of letters to XHTML, XML or PDF� Visualise the letters as reading text, diplomatic transcription, or XML source

‘Van Nu en Straks. The Letters’: How?

� Each letter = TEI file

� Description of metadata in <teiHeader>

� eXist-driven web interface

Why does it do what it does?

Because

wanted it to do so.

Therefore

this is the story of

the in TEI

(1) TEI: what?

“A consortium which collectively develops and maintains a standard for the representation of texts in digital form.”

“Its chief deliverable is a set of Guidelines which specifyencoding methods for machine-readable texts, chiefly in the humanities, social sciences and linguistics.”

“Since 1994, the TEI Guidelines have been widely used bylibraries, museums, publishers, and individual scholars topresent texts for online research, teaching, and preservation.”

http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml

What hear

Standard

Guidelines

Widely used

What hear

Standard

Guidelines

Widely used

What know

≠ only way

≠ prescript

≠ omnipresent

� editing with TEI:

too many downsides?

individual steep learning curve

institutional in-house skills, funding

technical no subset for correspondence

�only a few projects in Flanders

�these projects take years (trial and error)

Resolution #1

The in TEI <

and rightfully so

Because yes,

�It is quite an enterprise

�There are other (faster and more simple) ways

but

It offers the best guarantee that your data will be

– safe

– freely accessible

– readable for man and machine

� Initiative worth taking

(2) TEI Guidelines: what?

“The TEI Guidelines are designed to becustomized, and specific projects anddisciplinary groups often createcustomized versions reflecting particularneeds and practices.”

http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines/

What hear

designed to becustomized

for

particular needs

and practices

What hear

designed to becustomized

for

particular needs

and practices

What know

customization can be quite an undertaking

and

some needs are

more particular than others

�Editing letters with TEI:

too many downsides?

no TEI tagset specifically for letters use elements and markup schemes from other

TEI subsets

�only a handful of TEI projects for letters�all these projects: first (long) phase =

designing a specific markup scheme

e.g. Van Nu en Straks Letters

= combination

(1) standard TEI subsets(2) modifications of standard TEI elements

and attributes<add>, <note> and <seg> as global elements

(3) new elements and attributes<letIdentifier>, <letHeading>, <physDesc> and<envOcc/> in <letDesc>

<envelope> and <calc> in <ps>

Resolution #2

The in TEI <

No other part of your edition will reflect more of your personal view

on what text really is,

how the text that you’re editing is structured etc.

So: this is the awesome part of your edition, your corebusiness

(no matter what they’ll tell you)

<opener>

<dateline><date value="1890-01-22">Woensdag</date></dateline>

<salute>Waarde Heer en Vriend,</salute>

</opener>

<name type="person" reg="De Bom, Emmanuel">Mane</name>

<!ELEMENT envelope (envPart | envelope | note)+>

(3) Scholarly editions: where?

“[T]he Consortium provides a variety of resources and training events for learningTEI, information on projects using the TEI, a bibliography of TEI-related publications, andsoftware developed for or adapted to the TEI.”

http://www.tei-c.org/index.xml

What hear

information

on projects

using the TEI

What hear

information

on projects

using the TEI

What know

this information is very rare,

and only a few projectsprovide their own

source files

Publishing TEI/XML-based scholarly editions:too many downsides?

� matter of credibility and visibility

- You need a nest that is both safe and big enough topublish your work

(university, centre for digital humanities)

- Open access = source files available

- You should at least make a minimal effort to present yourdata in a more or less esthetically acceptable way

Resolution #3

The in TEI <

(4) Making your own edition in TEI:why (not)?

� Complex searching (place names, titles, foreign words etc.)

� Study and show textual variation, structure of text, sources for humanities

� Several output formats

� Sources have hierarchical structure

� Simple searching (words)

� Sources for/from exact sciences

� 1 output format (e.g. onlyHTML or book)

� Phenomena beyond clearstructures or hierarchies

TEI

� Complex searching (place names, titles, foreign words etc.)

� Study and show textual variation, structure of text, sources for humanities

� Several output formats

� Sources have hierarchical structure

But

You need that big and safe nest

not only for publishing

but also for making your edition

� it takes a village

Resolution #4

There is no

in TEI

Conclusion

1) Take initiative

2) Create the edition thatsuits as many purposes as possible, but do it like youthink it should be done

3) Make sure people get (and like) to see whatyou’ve made

4) Get as many help as possible

All in favour, say AYE

bert.vanraemdonck@ugent.be