General Documentation Structure

The documentation folder in the LEMDO repository consists of discrete files, each of which has a file name beginning with learn_. Each file is meant to function as a discrete section of documentation, with links to other sections or subsections (i.e., <div> elements within those files) as necessary. Each file is rooted on a <div> element and ought to contain an independently understandable section of a chapter (as much as anything is independently understandable). (See Structure of a Single Documentation File for more information on how single files are structured.
Note that we wrote some of these now-discrete files as much longer pieces of writing and have had to do the work of separating them and making them function independently. We have accounted for three factors in the division of documentation into discrete files:
The need of users for short Web pages that give them exactly what they need to solve a problem or to learn how to do something.
The need of users to read information in a particular order (i.e., if it is essential that users decide between two options, we keep the options in one file or make it clear at the top of both files that users also need to read the other file before making a decision). If it is essential that users understand a particular concept before undertaking a process, then we keep the concept and the process in the same file, or make it clear at the top of the second file that the user needs to understand the concept in the first file before proceeding.
The overall length of the piece. Long pieces require a lot of nested <div> elements. We try to avoid complex nesting in documentation because it produces long @xml:id values on <div> elements and implies hierarchies and dependencies that may not be necessary or true.
We process our documentation at rendering time into chapters. Each chapter groups information for a particular user group or addresses a particular procedure or problem. As of May 2025, the chapters are:
Chapter 1. Quickstart Guidelines
Chapter 2. Getting Started with LEMDO
Chapter 3. LEMDO’s Taxonomies
Chapter 4. Entities and Databases
Chapter 5. Making Links
Chapter 6. Style Guidelines
Chapter 7. General Encoding Guidelines
Chapter 8. Bibliography and Citation Guidelines
Chapter 9. Quotations
Chapter 10. Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Chapter 11. Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Features Unique to Print Playbooks
Chapter 12. Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions: Features Unique to Manuscript Playbooks
Chapter 13. Collation
Chapter 14. Modernized Texts
Chapter 15. Annotations
Chapter 16. Critical Paratexts
Chapter 17. Media
Chapter 18. Metadata
Chapter 19. Editions and Licensing
Chapter 20. Anthology Customization
Chapter 21. Anthology Release
Chapter 22. Programming
Chapter 23. Documentation Guidelines
Chapter 24. Conversions and Remediations
Appendix 1. Elements
Appendix 2. Attributes
Appendix 3: Supplementary Texts
Appendix 5. Legacy Markup
To group sections under the right chapter heading, we go to the ODD file. The ODD file (lemdo.odd) contains a list of chapters, each chapter having its own @xml:id defined in the ODD file itself. We list the files in the order that we think will make the most sense to someone who arrives at the documentation via the Documentation Index. You will need to ask a Developer either to give you permission to edit the ODD file or to add the new section for you.
Chapter numbers are defined only in the ODD file. Chapter numbers are not part of the XML files that constitute chapter introductions and sections, which makes it simple to move sections and reorder chapters if it seems beneficial to do so.

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.

Metadata

Authority title General Documentation Structure
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.