Hello all, The recent spate of postings to this list has prompted me to get my own posting finished and out. Those of you who attended last October's conference may remember an evening meeting during which possibility of creating standards for the encoding of watermark and paper information into digital form was discussed. At that time, I argued strongly for the adoption of SGML, specifically that flavor described by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines. I also mentioned the possibility that the TEI might form a working group whose task would include developing a tagset specifically for paper and watermarks. Well, that group is in the process of forming. At present it includes David Vander Meulen and David Seaman from Virginia, and Martin Butler from Leeds, with one more European member still wanting. I have been asked to head the group. The group's charge calls for the creation of a set of SGML tags specifically for the encoding of descriptive and analytical data surrounding the physical book. This will include not only paper and watermarks but also typography, presswork, composition, and related subjects. I'll be attending the annual meeting of the TEI steering committee this weekend in Kingston, ONT., and one of the things I'd like to report is the cooperation of this list in developing the watermark and paper tags. We need to put establish what gets tagged, the relationship of an individual component to the whole, and a vocabulary for identifying the myriad watermark images. I have the list of those who expressed interest in this project last October, but most of the names do not include e-mail addresses. Anyone interested in working to establish standards for the digital recording and exchange of watermark and paper data are most welcome to contact me. I'll also post a brief report on this weekend's TEI meeting. Dave Gants -- David L. Gants *** Department of English *** Park Hall University of Georgia *** Athens, GA *** 30602-6205 dgants@english.uga.edu *** (706) 542-1261
Robert W. Allison
Dept. of Philosophy & Religion, Bates College and
James Hart
Information Services, Bates College Lewiston, Maine, 04240