SIG:Correspondence

TEI Special Interest Group for Correspondence (TEI Correspondence SIG)

News

The SIG initially met at the 2008 Members Meeting at King's College in London on 8th November 2008.

Introduction

The TEI Special Interest Group on Correspondence seeks to bring together scholars interested in creating digital scholarly editions of correspondence. The goal of the SIG will be to discuss and develop sample tagsets (including suggesting additions/modifications to the TEI Guidelines) for varying forms of correspondence as well as to create tutorials and best practice models.

Because the initiative for this SIG emerged from editorial work with 19th century letters, the organizers of this SIG have focused on these types of materials. However, we want this SIG to be more encompassing, embracing varying types of historical and literary correspondence including epistles, telegrams, postcards, etc.

The common feature of these sorts of text is a generally formalized physical appearance (e.g., an envelope for letters) and structure of content (i.e. address field, special formulas for opener and closer). DALF was one of the best documented projects in this area developing specific DTDs for those needs in P4: this may be a starting point for further work in P5.

Initial topics for the SIG Correspondence may include:

• the handling of the envelope and postal addresses
• the formal description of correspondence as a written dialogue between an author and an addressee
• correspondence-specific bibliographical data within the metadata section

Activities

The SIG runs a mailing list, which you can join by visiting http://listserv.brown.edu/tei-corresp-sig.html .

Topics currently discussed on the list

• The content of a special correspDesc element (Nov. 2008)
• The content model of postscript (Nov. 2008)
• How to deal with enclosures or attachements to a letter (Nov. 2008)

Results of current discussions

London minutes

The first section (14-15:30) saw short presentations of current projects by:

• Tim McLoughlin: James Barry's letters
• Hilde Bøe: eMunch project (assisted by Ellen Nessheim Wiger with the Henrik Ibsen correspondence)
• Peter Boot: correspondence of Vincent van Gogh
• David Sewell: correspondence projects published via ROTUNDA
• Deborah K. Wright: correspondence of Matthew Prior
• Peter Stadler: correspondence of Carl Maria von Weber

The second section (16-16:45) had to be shortened due to organisational necessities but saw general discussion about

• the content model of postscript which is rather restricted and does not allow for an i.e. head element. Everyone was encouraged to send examples via the list. [Let me add that the same holds true for address --pstadler]
• the need and the possible content for an correspDesc element within sourceDesc. I will try to create an odd file with the necessary additions to the schema as a starting point for further expertise. --pstadler.
• correspondence as an event. Lou pointed this out as similar topics were discussed in the ontologies SIG.

Useful links

Current Projects

Please add your projects alphabetically with link and (if possible) a short description!

• Alfred Escher Correspondence. A project of the Alfred Escher Foundation, Zurich (Alfred Escher-Stiftung). Edition of the correspondence of Alfred Escher, influential 19th century Swiss politician and entrepreneur (e.g. Credit Suisse, Gotthard railway), comprising several thousand letters. At first, an edition of selected letters to and from Escher will be published in book form, including rich annotations. The first volume of the series is already available. Later on, the correspondence of Alfred Escher will be made available online. The correspondence covers topics as diverse as politics, economics, education, railways, banks, insurance.
• Digital Archive of Letters by Flemish authors and composers from the 19th & 20th century, DALF
• Emily Dickinson's Correspondences (public version not yet online), to be published under the Rotunda imprint by University of Virginia Press. An edition of selected correspondence to and from American poet Emily Dickinson, with MS facsimiles and rich metadata capturing physical details of the manuscripts.
• Gundolf-Elli. Correspondence between Friedrich Gundolf and Elisabeth Salomon (George-Kreis). Project at the German Literature Archive. There is no website, yet. For more information use the mailing list.
• eMunch. Edvard Munch's written material: Complete letters, diaries and writings, eMunch (temporary, will be improved)
• Online edition of the correspondence concerning the journal 'Van Nu en Straks'. Project at the Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (KANTL-CTB, Ghent) and Ghent University (Belgium). This project is part of the broader DALF-project (see above). So far, there is no real website yet, only some information in Dutch For more information, use the mailing list.
• Weber, C.M.v.: Complete letters, diaries, writings and compositions, Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe (at the moment german only)
• Vincent van Gogh, The letters Vincent van Gogh, The letters (limited info only). A full edition of all the extant correspondence of Vincent van Gogh (900 letters). The edition will include a full transcription (in Dutch and French), a translation into English, a full facsimile, extensive annotation and about 2000 illustrations. The edition will be available on the web, and, somewhat abridged, in book form. See also more info

Completed Projects

• The Dolley Madison Digital Edition, part of the University of Virginia Press's Rotunda series. This is an ongoing publication, but the first two "volumes" are online. Currently the underlying data is tagged using the Model Editions Partnership variant of TEI (P4), but we are also exporting and transforming the documents to TEI P5 for interoperability with other material. (Contact: David Sewell)