User talk:OCIMCO

ABOUT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPT CATALOGUES ONLINE PROJECT (OCIMCO)
The OCIMCO project aims to greatly improve scholarly access to the valuable Islamic texts held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Cambridge University Library. It is part of JISC's Digital Resources for Islamic Studies programme aimed at opening up access to a wide range of rare and important Arabic manuscripts and Islamic Studies resources.

Although much excellent work has been done in the UK to digitise medieval manuscripts like Psalters, books of hours and bestiaries, Middle Eastern manuscript culture has received less attention, yet UK organisations hold rich and valuable collections and there is great and increasing demand for access to them. The OCIMCO project is using TEI/XML to create some 10,000 basic manuscript descriptions that will be freely available and searchable online. These basic descriptions will also provide a framework for future enhancements and the inclusion of more details about individual manuscripts.

As the documentation for TEI manuscript description derives from Western manuscript examples, applying these descriptive standards to Islamic manuscripts in a union catalogue present a number of challenges, which are explored in the project documentation presented here.

OCIMCO PROJECT DOCUMENTATION
The TEI's Manuscript Description module makes it possible to provide detailed descriptive information about handwritten primary sources. While the OCIMCO project has initially focussed on the retrospective conversion of existing descriptions and catalogues, it will eventually provide detailed manuscript descriptions that will include digital representations of the manuscripts themselves.

For the purpose of this documentation we have chosen a representative record which will be discussed in detail: MS. Marsh 80, one of over 700 manuscripts belonging to Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh and fellow of Exeter College, which the Bodleian received by bequest in 1714. Below is the complete TEI-conformant description of this manuscript:

    MS. Marsh 80 - OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPT CATALOGUES ONLINE JISC Gillian Evison   [Date when first made available] Bodleian Library  Department of Special Collections Bodleian Library Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG    oriental@bodleian.ox.ac.uk </addrLine> </pubPlace> OCIMCO </publicationStmt> </recordHist> <availability status="restricted"> Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of                                   a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures contact <ref                                        target="http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/admissions/"                                        >Bodleian Admissions ). Contact oriental@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for further information on the availability of this manuscript </adminInfo> </msDesc> </sourceDesc> </fileDesc> <encodingDesc> <classDecl> <taxonomy xml:id="LCSH"> </classDecl> </encodingDesc> <profileDesc> <textClass> <keywords scheme="#LCSH"> </textClass> </profileDesc> <revisionDesc> <change when="2009-05-14"> Alasdair Watson created this file on 14 May 2009. </revisionDesc> </teiHeader> <graphic url="folio1r.png"/> <graphic url="folio1v.png"/> <graphic url="folio2r.png"/> <graphic url="folio2v.png"/> </TEI>

The TEI Header Elements
The header of a TEI document provides a mechanism for describing an encoded work so that the text itself, its source(s), its encoding, and its revisions are all thoroughly documented. The <teiHeader> element provided for this purpose has four principal components:


 * <fileDesc> (file description) : contains a full bibliographic description of an electronic file.
 * <encodingDesc> (encoding description) : documents the relationship between an electronic text and the source or sources from which it was derived.
 * <profileDesc> (text-profile description) : provides a detailed description of non-bibliographic aspects of a text, specifically the languages and sublanguages used, the situation in which it was produced, the participants and their setting.
 * <revisionDesc> (revision description) : summarizes the revision history for a record.

The file description <fileDesc>
<fileDesc>  MS. Marsh 80 - OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPT CATALOGUES ONLINE JISC Gillian Evison </titleStmt> <publicationStmt> <date calendar="Gregorian">[Date when first made available] Bodleian Library <pubPlace> Department of Special Collections</addrLine> Bodleian Library</addrLine> Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG</postCode>  </addrLine>  oriental@bodleian.ox.ac.uk </addrLine> </pubPlace> OCIMCO </publicationStmt> <sourceDesc> <msDesc xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" xml:id="OCIMCO" xml:lang="eng"> ...       </msDesc> </sourceDesc> </fileDesc>

The OCIMCO project makes use of the three mandatory elements in the <fileDesc> section to provide a bibliographic description of each machine-readable record. The  (title statement) groups information about the   of the record and those responsible for its intellectual content, namely the principal researcher/project manager   Gillian Evison and the organization responsible for the funding of the project  , the JISC.

The <publicationStmt> (publication statement) is used to group information concerning the publication or distribution of the record. The Bodleian Libraries act as   of the manuscript records, and the statement includes both the   of publication and the publisher's physical, online, and e-mail addresses. The identifier   by which the project is known, OCIMCO, is also provided as part of the publication statement.

The <sourceDesc> (source description) finally describes the source from which an electronic record was derived or generated, which is the place for the detailed <msDesc> (manuscript description) used by the OCIMCO project, which will be discussed below.

The encoding description <encodingDesc>
<encodingDesc> <classDecl> <taxonomy xml:id="LCSH"> </classDecl> </encodingDesc>

The OCIMCO project makes use of the TEI header's encoding description <encodingDesc> section as a place to record classification declarations in the <classDecl> element. This element contains one or more taxonomies   defining any descriptive classification schemes used by other parts of the header, primarily the <profileDesc> (text-profile description). The OCIMCO project uses Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) as its main vocabulary.

The text-profile description <profileDesc>
<profileDesc> <textClass> <keywords scheme="#LCSH"> </textClass> </profileDesc>

The OCIMCO project uses the <textClass> element within the <profileDesc> section to classify a text by reference to the taxonomy defined in the <classDecl> element in the <encodingDesc> section, namely LCSH. The headings are recorded in a   section, the <tt>scheme</tt> attribute of which identifies the controlled vocabulary. Each subject heading constitutes an   in the list of keywords, which references   the exact concept via a URI in the <tt>target</tt> attribute.

The revision description <revisionDesc>
<revisionDesc> <change when="2009-05-14"> Alasdair Watson created this file on 14 May 2009. </revisionDesc>

The OCIMCO project records all changes to individual records in the <revisionDesc> element. This element provides essential information for the administration of large numbers of files which are being updated, corrected, or otherwise modified as well as extremely useful documentation for records being passed from researcher to researcher or system to system. This section provides an important mechanism particularly for a collaborative project like OCIMCO to log changes and provides a basic versioning mechanism for the encoders. Each change to a record is recorded in a time-stamped   element, using the <tt>@when</tt> attribute.

The Manuscript Description Elements
The Manuscript Description module provides a <msDesc> element for the purpose of a detailed description of a single identifiable manuscript. It appears within the <sourceDesc> element (see above) in the header of a TEI-conformant document, where the document being encoded is a digital representation of the manuscript original, whether as an encoded transcription in a   section, as a collection of digital images in a   section, or as some combination of the two. The <msDesc> element has the following components, which provide more detailed information under a number of headings:


 * <msIdentifier> (manuscript identifier) : contains the information required to identify the manuscript being described.
 * <msContents> (manuscript contents) : describes the intellectual content of a manuscript or manuscript part, either as a series of paragraphs or as a series of structured manuscript items.
 * <physDesc> (physical description) : contains a full physical description of a manuscript or manuscript part, optionally subdivided using more detailed elements.
 *   : groups elements describing the full history of a manuscript or manuscript part.
 *   : groups additional information, combining bibliographic information about a manuscript, or surrogate copies of it with curatorial or administrative information.
 * <msPart> (manuscript part) : contains information about an originally distinct manuscript or part of a manuscript, now forming part of a composite manuscript.