SIG:Correspondence/handbook

Encoding Correspondence. A Manual for Encoding Letters and Postcards in TEI-XML and DTABf
Although the TEI Guidelines contain suggestions for the encoding of correspondence materials, there are still open questions on how to deal with several structural and textual occurrences. This situation led to the idea of holding a workshop to discuss problematic cases of correspondence encoding in TEI, and to develop solutions as well as potential extensions to the TEI.

This workshop was held by the conveners of the SIG Correspondence (Stefan Dumont, Sabine Seifert) and a representative for the DTA Base Format (Susanne Haaf) at the BBAW in Berlin in October 2018. All problems discussed concern aspects of letter coding: from letter-specific text structures to correspondence metadata. To name but a few, problems with or were treated as well as the use of  for specific correspondence situations. The Correspondence Metadata Interchange Format (CMIF) was also developed further. The problems, discussions, and solutions of this workshop were summarized as handbook-like articles by the workshop participants. There will also be a best practice guide for quick access.

The handbook is edited by Stefan Dumont, Susanne Haaf, and Sabine Seifert. It is released in a version 1 open access [here https://encoding-correspondence.bbaw.de/], with more articles coming and with the possibility for the community to review and comment. After the public peer review phase (until April 30, 2020), the articles will be revised and updated, and the handbook will be published in version 2.

Topics covered:

 * openers and closers
 * postscripts
 * pre-printed parts like letterheads and forms
 * correspondence metadata interchange format v2
 * authority files
 * unclear information in meta data
 * addresses
 * seals, stamps, post stamps
 * attachments
 * envelopes
 * etc.