Do You TEI? Survey Findings of Text Encoding Practices in Libraries

Abstract

Historically, libraries— especially academic libraries—have contributed to the development of the TEI Guidelines, largely in response to mandates to provide access to and preserve electronic texts. The institutions leveraged standards such as the TEI Guidelines and traditional library expertise—authority control, subject analysis, and bibliographic description—to positively impact publishing and academic research. But the advent of mass digitization efforts involving scanning of pages called into question such a role for libraries in text encoding. Still, with the rise of library involvement in digital humanities initiatives and renewed interest in supporting text analysis, it is unclear how these events relates to the evolution of text encoding projects in libraries.

This paper presents the results of a survey of library employees to learn more about text encoding practices and to gauge current attitudes toward text encoding. The survey asked such questions as:

As library services evolve to promote varied modes of scholarly communications and accompanying services, and digital library initiatives become more widespread and increasingly decentralized, how is text encoding situated in these new or expanding areas? Do we see trends in uptake or downsizing of text encoding initiatives in smaller or larger academic institutions? How does administrative support or lack thereof impact the level of interest and engagement in TEI-based projects across the library as whole? What is the nature of library-led or -partnered electronic text projects, and is there an increase or decrease in local mass digitization or scholarly encoding initiatives? Preliminary analysis shows, despite assumptions of decline, that over 80% of eligible respondents are actively engaged in text encoding projects, and many others are planning to embark on a new project. The presentation will unveil a full analysis.