SIGcorresp Minutes 20111015

Participants

• Fotis Jannidis (FJ)
• Syd Bauman (SB)
• Edward Vanhoutte (EV)
• Ron Van den Branden (RVB)
• Elena Pierazzo (EP)
• Lou Burnard (LB)
• Joachim Veit (JV) - head of meeting
• Martin de la Iglesia (MI)
• Stefan Cramme (SC)
• Jörg Ritter (JR)
• Michael Huber (MH)
• Mareike Laue (ML)
• Sabine Seifert (SS)
• Raffaele Viglianti (RV)
• Sina Bock (SB)
• Anna Maria Komprecht (AMK)
• Benjamin Wolff Bohl (BWB) - minutes
• some more that came in late, feel free to enter your name

Introduction (JV)

• introduction of participants
• survey on the developement and history of the SIG and topics discussed so far

Discussion <correspDesc> (or similar)

• current sketch:
  • DALF as P4 customization offers a lot of elements for letter description
  • Peter Stadler had put a customization (ODD) into discussion on the SIG:s mailing list, allowing for a core corresDecs inside tei:sourceDesc

• meanwhile EV and RVB (KANTL) have mapped DALF to P5, allowing for many of the dalf:letterDesc elemens in tei:msDesc in order to suffice the needs of their project; nevertheless they will contribute and are willing to receive input; mapping and ODDification of DALF-TEI could be completed by the end of the year
• Edvard Munch letters have been transcribed in perfect uncustomised TEI
• in order to assist further discussion a comparison of these three shall be made; EV and RVB volunteered

=> PRELIMINARY GOAL: publish comparison on WiKi

• EP brought forward that in aiming for a feature request in TEI one will have to take into account
  • the current discussion on tei:msDesc in the SIG:manuscripts: introducing a tboDesc (text bearing object) in order to address a greater amplitude of "manuscripts"
  • notions of forming a "superMetaSIG" in order to coordinate efforts in creating a "elephantDesc" (i.e. a common thing allowing for descriptions of as many textual sources as possible)
• FJ opted against starting with a "superSIG", before finishing the SIG:s work, as it is obvious that there will be no quick results, which would frustrate poeple
• RVB put in that defining a small set of elements would be more convenient for further generalisation and integration
• SB pointed out that in the end a tboDesc could be the right thing and teh SIG should try to feed in specific things
• EP from her TEI-council experiences things developed for a bigger things have been problematic and many elements have been depricated but cannot be dropped because of backwards compatibility; if the SIG goes that way things might be developed and then dropped
  • as there will not be a modification ot tei:msDesc EP recommends aiming for a customisation
• JV stated that as far as he understood, the wish for a subsetContainer for a very restricted info about letters has a consesus

=> MIDDLE-TERM GOAL: publish a "official" customization

• JV asked for a taskforce and definition of some future activities
• RVDB hopes DALF will conclude their efforts in P5 mapping until the end of the year
• FJ proposed a comparison of the two customisations and the P5-conformant encoding at Munch Letters; EV (DALF/KANTL) voluntered on setting up the comparison
• JV called for examples in order to see the differences and supply other projects with some orientation and information for their work
  • EV at the edition we started in march [PLEASES FILL IN THE URL] there you can see the XML
• EP prefers a tighter plan that could even result in a porposal for a TEI-Microgrant
  • e.g. the purpose of two days will be: "we collect letters and put them in the WiKi" or similar; someone will have to coordinate especially if the grant will come out maybe next month
• LB proposed a more complete overview of how to edit letters as one would have to be very careful not to think these 3 will cover everything;
  • this would be wonderful but would need researchers and funding(EV)
• EP clarified that it should be about a starting point first
• JV added as we are dependant on the SIG contributors, there is only a very small field of letters at the moment
• EP modern, renaissance and medieval letters are completely different
• SB interested in wether the TEI council will consider E-Mail as corresp or CMC (computer mediated communication)
• EP the SIG has to define what they deal with
• SB a guidance / thoughts from council will be interesting

Elena: then we will have to find out what people have done; then a compressed proposal

• JV for TEI-by-example it's a bit too early but how can we help people

Lou Burnard:give 3 say you figure Ritter: My college is looking for a recommendation Lou Bernard: you must make an intellectual deciscion, sorry Elena: that's hard for the begining Lou Burnard: life's hard Elena: it's ultimately the rule to give something, the best practice might be this Ritter: If there's no recommendation, I say do what you want as long as I can process Veit: many want to cooperate and with a common solution it's easier Lou Bernard: of course; doing TEI-things; meta-recommendation Jannidis: common denominator work out of the box Vanhoutten: you will compromise yourself in using a set not fit; designing your own encoding solution is your scholarly work

• EP sometimes you just want to do the thing everybody else does; I claim we should give guidance; there's nothing wrong with that; guide us for the start

• SB will:
  • try to sprousse up peters odd to make it work with the TEI a little better
  • Input form dalf comparison is really useful; we should have discussion around the comparison, better of as conference call than e-mail because it's harder to put off

=> LONGTERM GOAL: survey what poeple have done, generate a proposal