View source for SIG:Correspondence/RequestForModule

< back to [[SIG:Correspondence]]

==Request for a correspondence module and a wrapper element for correspondence meta data==

===Introduction===

It was in 2008 at the London TEI Members' meeting when the SIG on Correspondence held its first meeting. On the SIG's agenda has since then been the creation of a dedicated ODD file for documenting a best practice model of encoding correspondence material. There have been several P4 projects with a dedicated correspondence schema but the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe (WeGA) was---to my knowledge---the first to publish a P5 schema.<ref>http://wiki.tei-c.org/index.php/SIG:Correspondence/ODD_work</ref>

Meanwhile Ron van den Branden has published a (preliminary) DALF P5 proposal<ref>http://ctb.kantl.be/project/dalf/P5/DALF_P5-p0.1.zip</ref>
which in fact has several parts in common with the WeGA schema. Hence I think it is time to merge the comparable parts into the standard TEI schema.

I do actually tentatively propose (only) two things which I think to be widely acceptable and so shall be discussed during our meeting:

* a correspondence module
* a wrapper element for correspondence meta data

If there was positive agreement about these issues by the group, this proposal can then be elaborated as a feature request to the TEI technical council and will hopefully make it into the TEI standard.


===Correspondence Module===

Both ODD schemata (DALF and WeGA) define a special purpose module for grouping together their additions to the vanilla TEI schema. This module simply serves as a (virtual) container for any new element or class etc. and would facilitate future additions. If there was agreement to introduce such a module, the only issue would probably be the name. Since the SIG is named "Correspondence" and the term is broader than "Letter", I do favor this one. On the other hand there is a possible clash with the attribute @corresp that could lead to misinterpretation.


===Wrapper Element for Correspondence Meta Data===

Another common denominator of the two schemata is their addition of a special purpose element <dalf:letDesc> or <wega:correspDesc> respectively. Both elements are injected into <sourceDesc> and act as a wrapper element for information regarding the sender, addressee, place of sender etc. Their is one little structural  difference though: while the WeGA schema introduces <wega:sender>, <wega:addressee> etc. directly within <wega:correspDesc>, DALF has an intermediate <dalf:letHeading>.

Hence I do propose an element <''wrapper''> (it should be decided on the real tag name during the meeting)  with the following content:

* sender(s)
* addressee(s)
* place of sender(s)
* place of addressee(s)
* start date of shipment (= when was it sent by the sender)
* end date of shipment (= when was it received by the addressee)

While I do think that agreement can be reached about the overall goal, I do see a lot of points that need to be discussed: 
# where to put <''wrapper''>? While both schemata put it into <sourceDesc>, one could argue as well to put it into <profileDesc>. 
# What structure to adopt for <''wrapper''>? A flat one as it is done by the WeGA or a deeper one as modeled by DALF? 
# Tag names, content models etc. need to get fleshed out. While we could decide about some sort of a naming convention maybe, the actual ODD definitions need to be developed after the meeting most likely (due to time constraints).

===Notes===
<references />