[tei-council] First Draft Press Release (for immediate comment, please)

[Dan O'Donnell]

On Wed, 2007-07-11 at 10:37 +0000, Arianna Ciula wrote:
> Could some links be added at least to the guidelines?

That's been done in the XML version: more difficult in the email.

> 
> I think automatic processing and validation of expression of dates and 
> times thanks to mapping to W3C and ISO date formats should also be included.

I'd thought this was covered under taking full advantage of schemas and
datatyping, but I'm happy to add it if CR hasn't posted it.

> 
> Arianna
> 
> Dan O'Donnell wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Our Communications person will be coming round to go over this draft
> > press release in a couple of hours. He'll than take it away for his
> > fairies to work on for the rest of the afternoon before we release it.
> > 
> > It's obviously important that the raw material he works with be good,
> > accurate and complete: I'd really appreciate anybody who can spare some
> > time taking a look at this and emailing back any complete blunders I've
> > made or features/points I should be making in the press release.
> > 
> > The target audience for this release is the scholarly community: XML
> > cognoscenti but also scholars with less digital knowledge but interest
> > in the topic. It is neither a teaching document nor a technical spec,
> > but rather a kind of "bet you didn't know" document.
> > 
> > Although this is primarily a board matter, nobody knows the guidelines
> > better than the editors and the current council, so I appreciate
> > comments from anybody on either.
> > 
> > -dan
> > 
> > ==========
> > FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> > 
> > 
> > The Text Encoding Initiative announces the release of a major new
> > edition of its XML standard Guidelines for the encoding of scholarly
> > texts: P5 version 1.0. 
> > 
> > 
> > This new release thoroughly revises previous editions and adds many new
> > features to assist scholars in their research. Among the changes are:
> > 
> >       * New support for manuscript description, multimedia and graphics,
> >         standoff annotation, and representation of data pertaining to
> >         people and places
> >         
> >       * Improvements in the representation of abbreviations,
> >         corrections, and other textual alterations and alternatives
> >         
> >       * The introduction of simpler mechanisms for linking and pointing
> >         to other documents
> >         
> >       * A complete revision in the methods used for handling languages
> >         and character sets
> >         
> > 
> > TEI P5 version 1.0 is also the first edition of the Guidelines to take
> > full advantage of the power of XML schema languages. As a result, users
> > can now
> > 
> >       * Perform far more rigorous validation than has ever been
> >         possible, including new support for the validation of datatypes
> >         on attribute values
> >         
> >       * Use elements drawn from other XML tagsets, such as MathML or
> >         Docbook within a TEI document
> >         
> >       * Embed TEI-encoded texts in other types of XML documents, such as
> >         METS and MODS records 
> >         
> >       * More easily create, maintain, and document user customizations
> >         
> > 
> > 
> > Despite these changes, TEI P5 Version 1.0 also maintains all of the
> > features that have made to the Guidelines the premiere standard for
> > scholarly text encoding over the last 20 years:
> > 
> >       * Free availability on the Web and under improved (GNU General
> >         Public License, version 2) Licencing
> >         
> >       * A modular architecture that is even more easy to customise or
> >         extend
> >         
> >       * A large number of finely nuanced elements suitable for encoding
> >         almost any structural textual feature
> >         
> > 
> > 
> > About the TEI
> > The Text Encoding Initiative Consortium is an international organization
> > whose mission is to develop and maintain guidelines for the digital
> > encoding of literary and linguistic texts. The Consortium publishes the
> > Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and
> > Interchange: an international and interdisciplinary standard that is
> > widely used by libraries, museums, publishers, and individual scholars
> > to represent all kinds of textual material for online research and
> > teaching.
> > 
> > The TEI is supported by annual dues from institutional members and
> > individual subscribers, with additional funding from grants and the
> > institutional support of its hosts. Its chief activities include the
> > publication and ongoing development of the TEI Guidelines, and support
> > for their use with schema development tools, training and documentation
> > initiatives, discussion forums, and an annual conference.
> > 
> > The TEI community is broad-based and international in scope, including
> > members in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia and users at
> > hundreds of universities, libraries, research units, and businesses
> > worldwide. The materials encoded with the TEI Guidelines are as various
> > as its practitioners, spanning the breadth of the humanities and social
> > sciences and occasional usage in the scientific community as well. In
> > addition to wide adoption in digital libraries, the TEI is used to
> > represent manuscripts, research papers, historical archives, early
> > printed books, linguistic corpora, anthologies, critical editions,
> > ancient inscriptions, and a wealth of other literary, historical, and
> > cultural material. The scope of the TEI is constantly expanding and the
> > Guidelines are in steady ongoing development to keep pace with the
> > emerging needs of the TEI community.
> > 
> > 
> 
-- 
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD
Chair, Text Encoding Initiative <http://www.tei-c.org/>
Director, Digital Medievalist Project <http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/>
Associate Professor and Chair of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Vox: +1 403 329 2378
Fax: +1 403 382-7191
Homepage: http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/