LEMDO: Encode File Categories in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

Encode File Categories in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

Prior Reading

Read about the LEMDO Taxonomies: Introduction to LEMDO’s Taxonomies

Rationale

LEMDO processes different types of documents in different ways. The processor looks for the


                                          <catRef>

elements inside the


                                          <textClass>

element in the


                                          <teiHeader>

of your document and then applies the appropriate processing for the document types that are captured in the


                                          <catRef>

elements. If you document does not have


                                          <catRef>

elements, our processor will not know what type of file it is. If your document has the wrong values in the


                                       @target

attribute of the


                                          <catRef>

elements, our processor will apply the wrong processing to your file.

LEMDO has special processing for semi-diplomatic transcriptions (i.e, semi-diplomatic transcriptions), so it is particularly important to get the


                                          <catRef>

s right for these types of documents.

Practice

A semi-diplomatic transcription will have at least four


                                          <catRef>

elements:

One indicates the general document type, using the value "ldtPrimaryText" from the LEMDO Document Type Taxonomy. (See Document Type Taxonomy.)

One indicates the format of the printed book, using a value from the LEMDO Book Formats Taxonomy: "lbfQuarto", "lbfFolio", "lbfBroadside", or "lbfOctavo". (See Print Book Formats Taxonomy.) Note that transcriptions of manuscript playbooks will have the value "lbfManuscript".

One indicates the editorial treatment, using the value "letSemiDiplomatic" from the LEMDO Editorial Treatments Taxonomy. (See Editorial Treatments Taxonomy).

One indicates the work type (i.e., genre), using a value from the LEMDO Work Types Taxonomy: "lwtPlay", "lwtPoetry", "lwtProse", or "lwtShow". (See Work Type Taxonomy.)

Each


                                          <catRef>

element has two attributes:


                                       @scheme

and


                                       @target

. Use the


                                       @scheme

attribute to point to the xml:id of the taxonomy; the value must have the tax: prefix. Use the


                                       @target

attribute to point to the value as defined in that taxonomy; the value must have the cat: prefix.

Optionally, you can add a


                                          <catRef>

to describe the origin of the document using the LEMDO Document Histories Taxonomy. Semi-diplomatic transcriptions might have come from a converted IML file or from TCP. If this is the case for your file, use the appropriate value: "edhSourceIML" or "edhSourceTCP". If you have transcribed the play yourself into a LEMDO XML template file, you do not need to describe the origin of the document; in this case, you will simply record your witness in the


                                          <sourceDesc>

element.

Note that


                                          <catRef>

is an empty element.

Examples

Quarto playbook that was converted from an IML-encoded file:

Folio play that was converted from an IML-encoded file:

Quarto playbook that was converted from an EEBO-TCP file:

Prosopography

Isabella Seales

Isabella Seales is a fourth year undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Victoria. She has a special interest in Renaissance and Metaphysical Literature. She is assisting Dr. Jenstad with the MoEML Mayoral Shows anthology as part of the Undergraduate Student Research Award program.

Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.

Mahayla Galliford

Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Nicole Vatcher

Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.) in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was women’s writing in the modernist period.

Tracey El Hajj

Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Glossary

empty element

“Empty elements are also called milestone or self-closing elements, but LEMDO uses the term empty element. Empty elements do not have child text or element nodes.”

ISE Markup Language (IML)

“The boutique markup language of the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE).”

semi-diplomatic transcription

“A semi-diplomatic transcription has the editorial treatment type letSemiDiplomatic. We are transitioning away from the ISE term old spelling and are now using the term semi-diplomatic in our documentation and titles. A semi-diplomatic transcription preserves the spelling and punctuation of the witness. Depending on the anthology’s editorial practice, a semi-diplomatic transcription might not preserve long s, variants in type (e.g., the rotunda), or other typographical, scribal, or bibliographical features.”

Metadata

Authority title	Encode File Categories in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Type of text	Documentation
Publisher	University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series	Linked Early Modern Drama Online
Source	TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
Editorial declaration	n/a
Edition	Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0
Encoding description	Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status	prgGenerated
Funder(s)	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
License/availability	This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom.