SIGcorresp Minutes 20111015

Participants in the Wuerzburg Meeting, Oct 15, 2011

• Fotis Jannidis (FJ)
• Syd Bauman (SB)
• Edward Vanhoutte (EV)
• Ron Van den Branden (RVB)
• Elena Pierazzo (EP)
• Lou Burnard (LB)
• Joachim Veit (JV) - convener
• 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)

• Sketch of the current situation:
  • DALF as P4 customization offers a lot of special elements for letter description
  • Peter Stadler had put a P5-customization (ODD) into discussion on the SIG:s mailing list, allowing for a core <corresDesc/> inside <tei:sourceDesc/>

• Meanwhile EV and RVB (KANTL) are mapping DALF to P5. In P5 many of the former P4 <dalf:letDesc/> elements had already been included in <tei:msDesc/>; nevertheless an inventory of the remaining additional correspondence elements which should be part of a correspondence specific customization would be very useful for further discussion. Mapping and ODDification of DALF to TEI P5 could be completed by the end of the year
• Edvard Munch letters have been transcribed in perfect uncustomized TEI, Hilde Boe should be asked if some examples may be published in the wiki for further discussion
• In order to assist further discussion a comparison of these three solutions will be an essential prerequisite

=> PRELIMINARY GOAL: Publish a comparison of the three solutions on the WiKi (and later enlarge this collection)

• EP brought forward that in aiming for a TEI feature request one will have to take into account:
  • the current discussion about tei:msDesc in the SIG:manuscripts: introducing a tboDesc (text bearing object) in order to address a greater amplitude of "manuscripts"
  • the idea 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 this SIG:s work, as it is obvious that there will be no quick results, which would frustrate people
• 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 the SIGs should try to feed in specific things
• Based on her experiences with the TEI-council EP suggests not to strive after "big things" because one has to consider that backwards compatibility always prevents too ambitious solutions; if the SIG goes that way things might be developed and then dropped
  • As there will not be a modification of 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 set of new correspondence elements has a consensus

=> MIDDLE-TERM GOAL: develop a proposal for "official" customizations

Discussion on future work

• 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 currently discussed customizations and the P5-conformant encoding of the Munch Letters; EV (DALF/KANTL) volunteered on setting up the comparison
• JV asked for examples in order to point up the differences and supply other projects with some orientation and information for their work as early as possible
  • 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 whether 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

=> MIDDLE-TERM GOAL: collect examples and find out what people have done

• JV: for TEI-by-example it's a bit too early but how can we help people who want to start with new editions?
• LB: give the 3 examples mentioned above, one has to figure out which is best for one's own purpose
• JR's college is looking for a recommendation (editorial note: and certainly other projects as well)
• LB: you must make an intellectual deciscion
• EP: it's hard for the beginning; it's ultimately the rule to give something: "the best practice might be..."
• JR: would like to see recommendations because otherwise people might loose interest
• JV: There is a clear wish for cooperation between editors of correspondence and with common solutions this would be much easier
• LB: first common ground is TEI; a meta-recommendation could be a second step
• FJ: common denominators work out of the box
• EV: you will compromise yourself in using a set not fit for your purpose; 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

=> MIDDLE-TERM GOAL: develop best practice models

=> LONG-TERM GOAL: make a compressed proposal (EP)

other proposals

• SB will try to sprousse up Peter's ODD to make it work with the TEI a little better
• SB proposed to make the discussions more visible by taking part in conference calls

DISCLAIMER:

If I got any of you wrong or misspelled your names or anything else, please feel free to correct all of the above or contact me in order to do so --Bwbohl 10:38, 20 October 2011 (EDT)