Progress Report No.2: 8 January -24 June 2002

Anna Sexton

7 June 2002

1. Staff changes

Geoffrey Yeo (Leaders Project Manager) has been offered a Lectureship Post within the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies. This has meant that from the 27 May 2002 he has been working 30% on the project and 30% in his new position in order to cover the research leave of one of his colleagues. This arrangement will continue until 1 October 2002 when he starts in his new position on a full-time contract. Geoffrey will maintain a research interest in the project and will act as a consultant for the team when necessary.

We are pleased to welcome Chris Turner who started on 27 May 2002 and replaces Geoffrey as the Project Manager. The timing of Chris' appointment has allowed for a cross-over period between Chris and Geoffrey which will end on 1 October 2002. Chris is employed on a part-time (60%) contract.

2. Research and Development

2.1 Building the model system

The LEADERS team are developing a model internet-based system where EAD encoded finding aids are integrated with TEI encoded transcripts and digitised images of archival material. The model will be used as part of the team's user needs analysis as a means of demonstrating some of the possibilities that an Internet-based interface which integrates TEI and EAD can offer, and as a tool for stimulating feedback on user needs in relation to the environment.

The team have selected a proportion of manuscripts, diaries and letters from the George Orwell Archive and a proportion of student registration forms, applications for professorships and minute books from the University College London Archive around which to build the system. The selection of material is illustrated in Table 1 and Table 2 below:

Table 1: Selection of material from the George Orwell Archive

Table 2: Selection of material from the University College London Archive

Encoding EAD finding aids and TEI transcripts for this selection of material is 75% complete and is being carried out using XMetaL. In relation to encoding the transcripts in TEI, the team have opted to use the 'TEILite DTD' (which is a multi-purpose or 'light' TEI encoding scheme), and has acted as a useful starting point for using TEI when marking up archival material.

The team have decided to carry out the digitisation of the selected samples of archival material for the pilot as an in-house operation. The digitisation process and the development of a functionality specification for the model are planned as the next stages in the development of the system.

2.2 The use of TEI markup for textual representations of archival documents

In conjunction with the development of the model system, the project team are beginning to look at the wider research question of how TEI can be modified for use with archival material of all kinds. The team are beginning to analyse the internal structures of archival documents, the presence or absence of formal rules or models for document structure and the range of relationships between one document and another within archival collections.

2.3 The interface between TEI and EAD

As work on the model progresses the team are looking into questions that are raised through the integration of EAD and TEI. Among the questions raised are:

* The nature of appropriate linkages between EAD and TEI, bearing in mind both the technical capabilities of the markup environment and the possible needs of users to navigate through a functioning LEADERS system
* The relationship between EAD descriptive levels and the use of groups and other structural divisions within TEI, and the possibilities of using these two hierarchical structures in the most appropriate fashion
* The role of the TEI Header when used in conjunction with the more extensive metadata framework provided by EAD in view of the fact that some of the necessary metadata could be housed in either place but we would wish to avoid unnecessary duplication.

3. Dissemination

3.1 Web-site

The team have developed a project web-site using Dreamweaver and Fireworks which has been tested in several browsers including the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera. It will be officially launched at the beginning of July after taking on board any feedback given by the Management Committee. At present, the whole site is password controlled, but when launched the 'Project Team Area' rather than the whole site will be restricted.

The team intend to make the model system available through the web-site alongside an appropriate mechanism for capturing open feedback on its usefulness.

3.2 Talks

Anna Sexton has given two talks relating to LEADERS which are outlined in Table 3 below:

Table 3: Talks relating to LEADERS

The Powerpoint slides for these presentations are mounted on the website.

3.3 Conferences

The team will be giving a paper at the Digital Resources in the Humanities Conference (Edinburgh University, 8-11 September 2002) entitled "TEI, EAD and Integrated User Access to Archives: Towards a Generic Toolset".

Anna Sexton will attend the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing Conference (24-28 July 2002, Tubingen University, Germany).

Chris Turner will attend the Society of Archivists Annual Conference (October 2002, Jersey).

4. Training

Training courses attended by the team are outlined in Table 4 below:

Table 4: Team training

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