Minutes from November 9, 2012

Present:
 * Kevin Hawkins (University of Michigan)
 * Michelle Dalmau (Indiana University)
 * Harriet Green (University of Illinois)
 * Gary Chaffee (Texas Southern University)

Syd stopped by before the meeting began to see he would be at the meeting.

Michelle gave a history of work of the SIG and the revision of the BP. Should SIG move into outreach?

Harriet wants to get training going at Illinois for some base competency in markup.

Gary is reprocessing Barbara Jordan papers and doing instruction in the library. They're looking at getting into digital project. University wants to hire new library director with interest in this area. He wants to undertake some TEI projects but is finding people questioning why it's necessary to do TEI and wants to know how to address them. Also trying to collaborate with a colleague in the Department of English. Where can they find funding?

Michelle asked Gary whether they have any sort of delivery system for TEI. Gary said they don't but they use Archon for EAD and are getting ready to implement Omeka. Michelle said there's work to integrate TEI Boilerplate with Omeka and that Tanya Clement is working on a plugin.

Kevin wants to convince people in libraries that "TEI is more than you think it is" (the lower levels of encoding which are perfectly suitable for many purposes).

Michelle talked about IU handles the various encoding levels. Indiana's LSTA granting agency will no longer fund TEI projects because they don't want the TEI (prefer basic metadata).

How to advocate for TEI? Michelle says faculty are key.

Gary talked about a project involving transcription of longhand manuscripts. Michelle suggested having students do this as part of the class.

Gary said they are working on creating an EAD file but haven't even put online.

Michelle said TEILIB-L list hasn't had much traffic. Harriet suggested using ACRL DH list to revise it. Gary said there are a number of SAA lists that might be of interest.

Gary said that what attracts him about TEI encoding is that text encoding can be done in house without great resources: he and grad students can do in spare time as time allows. But still needs to justify TEI encoding to administrators.

Michelle noted that you can't justify TEI encoding if all you can show in the end is XML files; instead, need to show content delivered online in TEIPublisher, Omeka, or TEI Boilerplate. Suggested TEIPublisher and TEI Boilerplate as the only two open-source systems with a low barrier of entry.

Kevin suggested writing a one-page whitepaper on when to use (and not to use) the TEI for senior library administrators. Harriet suggested gathering use cases that aren't just boutique projects. Scope it so that it's clear that it doesn't have to be a massive project.

Kevin said this whitepaper would but up against the question of whether libraries should be involved in encoding to address specific research questions or just do generic markup (up to Level 4). Michelle said institutions may need to do both: some institutions are supposed to support specific research needs. This document would be a sort of executive summary of the best practices. Could be interactive: a wizard with questions (checklist) where the recommendations change based on what you choose.

Kevin suggested a wiki for this to get contributions from others. Start with an outline in the wiki, invite feedback, and then flesh out the sections. Michelle said this might lead to a revival of TEILIB-L. Once we're ready to publicize, post to http://acrl.ala.org/dh/ and and other places where it will be discovered.

The group started writing the manifesto in Google Docs. Harriet will move the outline to wiki and ask for feedback on the structure. Then we'll invite help in writing the document according to that structure.

The group also started writing a project manager's checklist (which might become more visual) in Google Docs. Will similarly share with wider community for input.

SIG:Libraries