1. IN THEIR OWN WORDS TEI and World War I Elizabeth Hertenstein & Julie Rabine / BGSU Libraries 2015

2. So what is TEI? ◦Text Encoding Initiative ◦XML Based ◦Metadata schema used for literary works and manuscript materials ◦“Catalogs” individual content of material, not just physical object

3. TEI at BGSU ◦Rare Books School ◦Off-Site Training ◦Week long TEI Course ◦Hands on experience ◦Train others

4. Why do TEI locally? ◦Digital initiatives ◦Digital humanities ◦Other local projects ◦Special collections materials scanned with descriptive metadata ◦Librarians in the classroom working with student curated online exhibits ◦Transition to Cataloging & Metadata ◦Enriched metadata that goes beyond Dublin Core ◦Scholarly work for faculty librarians: Creating new knowledge

5. THE EMERSON FAMILY PAPERS PROJECT

6. Selecting primary materials: Emerson Family Papers ◦WWI centenary ◦2014-2018 ◦UL wide exhibitions ◦Local focus ◦Northwest Ohio family ◦Size of collection ◦Increased focus on digitizing hidden collections ◦Joint appointment

7. Preparing the collection ◦Digitization ◦Transcription ◦Students ◦Staff ◦Mark-Up ◦Review

9. Mark-Up with TEI ◦ Personal names,,, ◦Author ◦Places,,,, ◦Dates,,,, ◦Organizations,, ◦Misspellings ◦Abbreviations ◦Additions ◦Address ◦Salutation ◦Signature ◦Unknown words ◦Corrections ◦Form (for this project it will always be letter) ◦Gap (omitted material) ◦Initial mark-up by project coordinators ◦Materials used ◦Training documentation ◦Based on project coordinators experience ◦Working document ◦Supplied manual ◦Examples ◦TEI tags ◦Explanation of process ◦Review

10. Online display http://ul2.bgsu.edu/tei/WWI/

11. MEET THE EMERSON FAMILY Dramatis Personae

12. Creating the taxonomy ◦Full name ◦Dates ◦Names as they appear in the letters ◦Relationship to Harold and Earl ◦Age and situation during the time of the letter writing ◦Source: http://ancestry.comhttp://ancestry.com

13. “Four unidentified men in uniform” Earl Age 27 May 1918 – Sept 1919 Harold Age 26 June 1918 – July 1919 Clayton Age 22 Sept 1918 – March 1919 Dad & Home Front

14. GETTING STARTED Things that worked for us and things that… didn’t

15. Getting off the ground: Things to do ◦Start with focused people with high interest ◦Gain technical know-how, probably involving outside training ◦Form a partnership with archivists ◦Sell it to the dean ◦Get on the strategic plan ◦Enlist ITS ◦Provide in-house training ◦Find funding for student employees and staff time to carry on the work

16. Software considerations TEI creationHosting the collection ◦Omeka ◦Open source ◦Already in use for online exhibits ◦TEI plug in cumbersome ◦ContentDM ◦Limited “lite” version ◦LITS reluctant to experiment ◦No financial support ◦Oxygen ◦TEI code built in ◦Only 3 licenses ◦No test environment ◦Notepad++ ◦Open source ◦Too bare bones for non-programmers

17. If we had it to do again… ◦Attempt to consult with faculty at the start – don’t bother ◦Be more strategic with timeline – set benchmarks and deadlines ◦Plan student staffing more carefully – two-edged sword ◦Get Library ITS involved sooner

18. GOING FORWARD Does TEI have a future at BGSU Libraries?

19. Sustainability: Making it work for us ◦Identify materials to work with in the future ◦Keep the collaboration going with the Center for Archival Collections ◦Partner with faculty in the humanities ◦Make the transition from interesting project to regular department work

20. The Key: Faculty workload and staffing ◦Gain institutional buy-in for metadata projects as significant librarian work ◦Find ways to get basic cataloging done ◦Decide which parts of the work are most appropriate for faculty, staff, and student workers ◦Standardize work ◦Develop training + manual for students and staff who will be involved ◦Develop workflow for tracking, approving and uploading final versions

21. Future development of the website Work in progress ◦Search engine ◦Taxonomies ◦Reader-friendly transcripts ◦More content ◦Aesthetics

22. THE END Questions?