Using Transcription and Text Encoding in Digital Exhibits

“Closed for Business”www.hsp.org/bankers-trust

• 320 primary source documents• Biographies• Contextual essays• Teacher resources

Drupal 7 web site

Documents and biographies encoded in XML following Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) standards

What did we encode?

• Structure (paragraphs, page breaks, additions and deletions, etc.)

• Basic intellectual content (names and dates)

• Analytical content/pointers (interpretive/subject tags and document genres)

Sample encoding:

Process

• Selected & digitized documents• Transcribed and encoded text in XML using Oxygen

XML Editor• Proofread XML documents and added interpretive

encoding• Worked with outside web developers to build site• Uploaded documents to site• Processing magic! • Look for unexpected behavior / errors

The finished product:

www.hsp.org/bankers-trust

Lessons Learned

• Tech side of digital humanities can take a LOT of time for those of us learning by doing.

• TEI community offers support for newbies.• Assume that technology will change during

your project, and try to plan accordingly.• Document your decisions and leave yourself

bread-crumbs.

Want to learn more about TEI?

• The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) consortium www.tei-c.org

• TEI-L mailing list (available through www.tei-c.org)

• Brown University’s Women Writers ProjectOffers seminars, training materials, etc. http://www.wwp.brown.edu/outreach/seminars/

Next up: William Still Digital History Project

Questions? Contact:

Dana DormanProject Manager, Greenfield Digital Project & William Still Digital History ProjectHistorical Society of Pennsylvaniaddorman@hsp.org

Sarah NewhouseGreenfield Project Assistant & Processing ArchivistHistorical Society of Pennsylvaniasnewhouse@hsp.org