Book & Text Studies: Humanities Computing

The five-day workshop will provide introductory training in the theory and practice of digitizing text and image for those working in book and text studies. Training in these skills for those working in the Humanities is not readily available in South Africa, but both academics and advanced students are increasingly aware of the need to bring their work into line with that of colleagues elsewhere implementing more advanced technologies. Throughout the workshop week, applications to electronic editing: poetry, prose, epistolary material, genetic editing, image based editing etc. will be demonstrated.

This workshop is certified by the Text Encoding Initiative.

The programme will be run by a team appointed by an international body, the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC), which is also providing the funding for the workshops, and consisting of Melissa Terras (School for Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London, UK), Ron Van den Branden, and Edward Vanhoutte (both Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies, Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Belgium).

• Established academics and graduate students in the humanities engaged on projects in book, text and linguistic studies.
• Librarians and archivists
• Graduate students and academics trained in computer science wishing to acquire a knowledge of humanities computing problems: either for cross-over purposes or to facilitate their collaborations with colleagues in the humanities.

There will be no charge for attendance. A limited number of bursaries, to cover the cost of transport, accommodation and subsistence, for participants from historically disadvantaged institutions will be arranged. All those wishing to participate, or confirming their participation, please contact John Gouws <J.Gouws@ru.ac.za> by 1 September 2003. For information about transport and accommodation, contact Mrs Carol Booth <c.booth@ru.ac.za>.

An elementary computer literateness is required (know how to work with multiple windows, work with the mouse, create folders and files, download files from the internet). The language of the workshop will be English.

All participants should bring:

• Empty diskettes
• Their favourite poem on a diskette
• Photographs, pictures, and textual resources relevant to their work to digitise

All participants will be provided with all necessary documentation, tools and software.

The workshop would not be possible without the financial support of the Association of Literary and Linguistic Computing. Harold Short, Chair of the Executive Committee, has been particularly helpful in getting the show on the road.

The Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature in Belgium has very generously allowed us gratis the services of Edward Vanhoutte and Ron Van den Branden. The same courtesy has been extended by the School of Library, Archive, and Information Studies of University College London in the case of Melissa Terras.

The Department of Computer Science of Rhodes University has generously made its splendid facilities and support services available. Our special thanks is due to Professor Peter Clayton for the interest he has taken in this and other projects.

The Department of English was provided administrative support and the use of the audiovisual room.

Monday 8 September

1. Introductions to:

• This workshop
• Humanities Computing
• Associations involved
• Journals and mailinglists
• Publications
• Institutions

• Tim Berners-Lee (1999). Weaving the Web - The original design and ultimate destiny of the World Wide Web by its inventor. London: Orion Business Press / San Francisco: Harper.
• Vannevar Bush (1945). "As We May Think." The Atlantic Monthly July 1945, 176/1: 101-108.
• Marilyn Deegan (2000). Introduction. Frances Condron, Michael Fraser & Stuart Sutherland (eds.), Guide to Digital Resources for the Humanities 2000. Oxford: CTI.
• Susan Hockey (2000). Electronic Texts in the Humanities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• T. V. Raman (2001). "Welcome To The Universe Of Fancy Colored Paper!"
• W. Boyd Rayward (1994) "Visions of Xanadu: Paul Otlet (1868-1944) and Hypertext." JASIS 45: 235-250.
• Edward Vanhoutte (2000). "A Linkemic Approach to Textual Variation. Theory and Practice of the Electronic-Critical Edition of Stijn Streuvels' De teleurgang van den Waterhoek." Human IT 1/2000: 103-138.

2.1 XML: theory and practice from scratch, focusing on TEI

• Text Encoding & Markup
• Document analysis
• SGML - XML
• TEI
• Tools & Resources

• Alan Morrison, Michael Popham & Karen Wikander (2000). Creating and Documenting Electronic Texts: A Guide to Good Practice. Oxford: OTA.
  • chapter 4: "Markup: The key to reusability"
  • chapter 5: "SGML/XML and TEI"

• Edward Vanhoutte (1998). "... en doende, denkt dan nog: SGML, TEI en editiewetenschap." Edward Vanhoutte & Dirk Van Hulle (eds.) Editiewetenschap <!--in de praktijk-->, Gent, 1998. 107-33. [copy on this CD]

2.2 XML: theory and practice from scratch, focusing on TEI

• XML
• Valid and well formed XML
• Validating and parsing

• XML Definitions

• email.txt
• email.dtd
• email.xml
• email.css
• email.xsl
• poem.xml
• poem.xsl

2.3 XML: theory and practice from scratch, focusing on TEI

• TEILite: theory and hands-on

• teixlite.dtd
• List of teilite tags.

Into the Future, On the Preservation of Knowledge in the Electronic Age: Screening of the award winning documentary film by Terry Sanders.

Top

Tuesday 9 September

2.4 XML: theory and practice from scratch, focusing on TEI

• Hands-on: TEILite

• TEILite. "TEI U5: Encoding for Interchange: an introduction to the TEI." [html] [sgml] [xml] [pdf]
• A nice example of some TEI encoding of Flemish prose with an XSL stylesheet: De Leeuw van Vlaenderen.

2.5 XML: theory and practice from scratch, focusing on TEI

• Hands-on: TEILite

• Edward Vanhoutte (2000-2001). "It's all in the Head(er). From minimal to optimal use of the TEI Header."

3.1 XSL: theory and practice from scratch

• What does it do?
• XSL is XML
• Validating XSL
• XSL at work

• hello-world.xml
• hello-world2.xml
• hello-world.xsl
• hello-world2.xsl
• hello-world3.xsl
• hello-world4.xsl
• hello-world5.xsl
• hello-world6.xsl
• hello-world7.xsl
• hello-world8.xsl
• hello-world9.xsl
• hello-world10.xsl
• hello-world11.xsl
• hello-world12.xsl

3.2 XSL: theory and practice from scratch

• Crash course in XSL: formatting XML documents
• Demonstration of and introduction to other functions of XSL
• Tools and software
• Useful books and resources

Top

• anthology.xml
• anthology-index.xsl
• anthology.xsl

Wednesday 10 September

3.3 XSL: theory and practice from scratch

• Hands-on

3.4 XSL: theory and practice from scratch

• Hands-on

Top

Thursday 11 September

4.1 digitisation of Images

• The digital image - a brief guide
• Acquiring images
• File sizes and issues
• digitisation Conventions and Guidelines
• Image processing and enhancement
• Metadata
• Useful tools and resources

4.2 digitisation of Images

• Hands-on

5.1 digitisation of Textual resources

• Image versus text
• Acquiring texts (keying, OCR, license from archives)
• OCR techniques
• OCR problems and limitations
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Accessibility issues
• Useful tools and resources

5.2 digitisation of Textual resources

• Hands-on

• Digitisation Resources
• Stuart D. Lee (2001). Digital Imaging. A practical handbook. London: Facet Publishing.

Top

Friday 12 September

6.1 Project management

• Instigation
• Selecting and assessing
• Deciding
• Setting up
• Workflow
• Costing

6.2 Project management

• Hard- and software
• Maintaining the records
• Risk assessment and management
• Grant applications

• Susan Hockey (1999). "Making Technology Work for Scholarship: Investing in the Data." Richard Ekman and Richard Quandt (eds.), Technology and Scholarly Communication. University of California Press. p. 17-36.
• Marilyn Deegan & Simon Tanner (2001). Digital Futures. Strategies for the information age. London: Library Association Publishing.
  • chapter 1: "Digital futures in current contexts": p. 6-15
  • chapter 2: "Why digitize?": p. 30-57
  • chapter 4: "The economic factors": p. 84-105
• Stuart D. Lee (1999). 'Scoping the Future of the University of Oxfordís Digital Library Collections. Appendix E: Digitization Methods.'

is Lecturer in Electronic Communication at the School of Library, Archive, and Information Studies of University College London.
email: m.terras@ucl.ac.uk

Melissa graduated from the University of Glasgow with an MA in English Literature and the History of Art. She then went on to gain a Masters in IT and the Humanities, before recently completing her doctorate at The University of Oxford. This was a joint project between the Department of Engineering Science and the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, which looked at how to build cognitive systems to aid historians read damaged and deteriorated texts. Till recently, she was the Assistant Manager of the Engineering Policy department at the Royal Academy of Engineering, Westminster, advising the UK Government on science and technology. Her research interests include image processing, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, knowledge elicitation, and textual encoding, in order to build computational tools to aid humanities scholars in their tasks. She has published various articles on virtual reality and archaeology, and the use of computers for the study of ancient documents. As one half of the irrepressible bit-pop duo Varjak, Melissa released her first album So called science in 2002.

is co-ordinator of the Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature in Belgium and an associate of the University of Antwerp's department of Germanic Languages where he lectures on Humanities Computing.
email: edward.vanhoutte@kantl.be
URL: http://www.kantl.be/ctb/staff/edward.htm

Edward is an SGML/XML consultant in different academic projects in Belgium and The Netherlands, and publishes widely on textual and genetic criticism and electronic scholarly editing. He is Reviews Editor of Literary & Linguistic Computing (LLC) and series editor of the CTB-Cahiers. From 2002 onwards, he is member of the board of directors of the Vereniging voor Geschiedenis en Informatica (VGI - Association for History and Information Science). His research interests include text-encoding and markup of modern manuscript material, electronic scholarly editing, genetic editing, and the history of electronic editing. Together with Melissa Terras he is currently editing two dedicated forthcoming volumes of LLC focusing on young scholars in IT and the Humanities; with Espen Ore and Mats Dahlstrom, he is editing a forthcoming volume of that journal devoted to Nordic approaches towards electronic editing. He is currently researching a book on the history of electronic scholarly editing. Amongst his most recent publications are the text-critical reading edition of De Leeuw van Vlaenderen (The Lion of Flanders) by Hendrik Conscience (Lannoo, 2002), the text-critical reading edition in bookform (Manteau, 1999) and the electronic-critical edition on CD-Rom of Stijn Streuvels' De teleurgang van den Waterhoek (Amsterdam University Press/KANTL, 2000) which he prepared together with Marcel De Smedt. He edited several collections of essays like De ene leeuw is de andere niet. Zeven maal De Leeuw van Vlaenderen herlezen (Antwerp, 2003), Talig Erfgoed. De Zuidelijke Nederlanden in de 14de eeuw (Gent, 2002), and Paralipomena (Antwerp 2001), a collection of essays on genetic studies which he edited with Dirk Van Hulle. Epistolaria a volume on the editing of correspondence material is currently in print. Edward Vanhoutte is a passionate food writer and mainly reviews cookery books.

is a project officer at the Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature in Belgium.
email: ron.vandenbranden@kantl.be
URL: http://www.kantl.be/ctb/staff/ron.htm

Ron graduated from the University of Antwerp with degrees in Computational Linguistics and Humanities Computing. He currently works on the DALF project which stand for Digital Archive of Letters in Flanders. DALF is envisioned as a growing textbase of correspondence material which can generate different products for both academia and a wider audience, and thus provide a tool for diverse research disciplines ranging from literary criticism to historical, diachronic, synchronic, and sociolinguistic research. Ron has recently published in that field and spoken on international conferences. He plays the bass in the bands Fungi Kwonk and Stamper en de Meeldraden, and is air-roadie of the band Air on Maiden.

The Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing

The department of Computer Science and the department of English at Rhodes University (SA)

The Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (Belgium)

The School of Library, Archive, and Information Studies at University College London (UK)