4.0892 TEI Working Group on Literature: Survey Results (1/125)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 15 Jan 91 18:47:13 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0892. Tuesday, 15 Jan 1991.

Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 21:04 CST
From: Paul Fortier <FORTIER@UOFMCC>
Subject: Survey Report

LITERATURE NEEDS SURVEY RESULTS

In late November l990 the TEI Working Group on Literature Texts sent out
a survey to try and identify the needs of people working in literature
with computers.

Fifty-three responses were received to date. The following file
contains a summary of the responses. To facilitate use of the data some
organisational principles were applied to it.

First, responses were classified into two groups:

1. Experienced interdisciplinary scholars, generally defined as
people working in literature who have input texts, used texts from
elsewhere, processed them and, usually published results based on
their use of the computer. There were 40 responses from such people.

2. Other, people who are not literature scholars, not experienced with
literature texts, etc. There were 14 responses from such people.
These responses are not included in the following summary.

The questions from the Questionnaire are repeated followed by a line of
responses; the numbers indicate the number of respondants who checked
each category; a category "Not Answered" is added where appropriate.
After this line are found copies of all comments submitted by the first
group of respondants. The numbers (1) to (40) permit the user to
identify comments from a given respondant from one question to the next
without revealing names.

We wish, in transmitting this report, to thank all those who have given
the committee their time and advice in this matter. We wish also to
thank those who expressed solidarity with our work by sending in the
form although literature is not their field, a number of whom appended a
note to that effect.

If you wish to help us with further comments please send them to me at
FORTIER@UOFMCC.BITNET, or by paper post to Paul A. Fortier, Department
of French and Spanish, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man., R3T 2N2,
CANADA.

Cordially,

Paul A. Fortier,
for the Literature Working Group.

I. Standards for Literature Texts.

I would rate the importance of the indicated categories to standards
for literature texts as follows:

A. Bibliographical Information : (Place, date of publication, edition,
printing, etc):

32_Essential 7_Important __Not important 1_Should not be included

Further comments:
[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

B. Formal Characteristics (Chapters and sub-chapters, page and line
Breaks, stanza divisions, speakers in plays, stage directions, etc.):

35_Essential 5_Important __Not important __Should not be included

Further comments:
[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

C. Grammatical Information (Basic Form, Part of Speech, Inflection
Identification, etc):
5_Essential 15_Important 5_Not important 10_Should not be included
5_Not Answered

Further comments:
[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

D. Metrical Information for Poetry:

3_Essential 23_Important 5_Not important 3_Should not be included
6_Not Answered

Further comments:
[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

E. Interpretative Information (e.g. Narrative vs. expository
passages, direct and indirect discourse, point of view, themes,
images, allusions, etc.):

8_Essential 7_Important 4_Not important 20_Should not be included
2_Not Answered

Further comments:
[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

F. In order to do my work as I prefer, I need generally
accepted tags for the following aspects of texts (Please be as
specific as possible. This is not a test but an opportunity to
express your wishes. Please number your "wishes" and rank them
in descending order of preference.):

[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

G. Futher suggestions to the Work Group on Literature Texts:

[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

II. The Current Version of the Standards (TEI P1.1)

I would propose the following modifications to make them more
appropriate to the needs of scholars of literature (Please list in
descending order of preference):

[material deleted by editor: see below] --emb

--------------------

[A complete version of the TEI Working Group on Literature Texts' survey
results is now available through the fileserver, s.v. LITTEXTS
SURVEY91. You may obtain a copy by issuing the command -- GET filename
filetype HUMANIST -- either interactively or as a batch-job, addressed
to ListServ@Brownvm. Thus on a VM/CMS system, you say interactively:
TELL LISTSERV AT BROWNVM GET filename filetype HUMANIST; if you are not
on a VM/CMS system, send mail to ListServ@Brownvm with the GET command
as the first and only line. For more details see the "Guide to
Humanist". Problems should be reported to David Sitman, A79@TAUNIVM,
after you have consulted the Guide and tried all appropriate
alternatives.]