As a followup to my earlier message, here are some thoughts based on
what's been posted thus far about some potential synergies I see
between the TEI, ACH, and ALLC. I'm looking forward to seeing how
NINCH might fit into all this as well.
Some areas of common effort (some of these overlap more closely than others):
1. Outreach, generally speaking.
The TEI clearly has a fairly well-focused aim in its outreach efforts
(evangelize the TEI and teach people to use it) but inasmuch as this
evangelism rests on the belief that the TEI is the best encoding
option for many scholarly research materials, there's a more general
goal as well. If scholars are well-educated about how digital
resources work, and what technological methods support them best,
they will tend to use appropriate tools (like the TEI) and will get
better results. So I think it would make sense for the TEI to
participate in more general efforts to educate the scholarly public
about digital resources and in particular about the role scholars
need to play in information design/engineering. I'm guessing that
this is also something an interest shared by NINCH, and I know it's
shared by ACH and ALLC.
2. Conferences
This is an area where collaboration among most of the groups
represented here is already taking place. Again, the TEI has a
particular focus for its own annual conference, which is a members'
meeting (including elections, membership reports, members-only
activities, TEI training, etc.). I expect that the TEI would want to
keep this activity TEI-specific, though it might be possible to
piggy-back it onto another conference (though ALLC/ACH is already
pretty long...). The TEI also does have a fairly substantial role in
the annual ALLC/ACH conference, and I think the TEI could expand that
role if it chose (if it could propose good ways of using the time). I
believe there are discussions among the program committee this year
about how to use the allied organizations more effectively, so
perhaps there will be some new developments on this front.
3. Publications
The TEI doesn't currently have a publication, apart from its web
presence. I didn't list this as a desideratum in my last email,
because it hasn't been discussed (that I recall), but I think if a
new digital publication were being launched by a new conglomerate
organization, the TEI would benefit from being part of that
organization and being represented in the publication. In addition to
the outreach goals mentioned above, I think the TEI community could
be a valuable source of research which isn't currently making it into
publication because it's not being encouraged.
4. Support for research and education
The TEI is probably a long way from being able to fund any kind of
research support on its own. However, if being part of a larger group
were to free up resources, one way these could usefully be spent
might be in offering research support (perhaps in conjunction with
the training/consulting I mentioned in my last email) to projects
which are just getting off the ground, to individual scholars who are
attempting to lay the groundwork for new projects, or for students
who are working in humanities computing. I can see that the logistics
might be quite complex (and political), but in theory it's an area
where we could serve the non-profit/educational sector and where
there's considerable need.
Again, others from the TEI should feel free to amplify, comment, or censure--
best, Julia
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Sep 05 2002 - 15:16:06 EDT