Name Files Following LEMDO Naming Conventions

Disambiguation

This document explains LEMDO’s naming conventions. Note that the principles set out in this document apply only to TEI-XML documents and related source materials; other naming conventions are covered in LEMDO Programming Principles

Introduction

All LEMDO files must have descriptive file names. LEMDO has established a set of naming conventions to ensure that file names are both unique and descriptive. This documentation will guide you through the conventions for our different naming groups:
Editions
Anthologies
Images
Facsimiles
Performances
Documentation
Databases

Principles

While we have specific naming conventions for different groups, there are some principles that are true across the LEMDO project:
Give all files that you create for the project—even word-processor files with notes in them—descriptive file names.
All file names must be unique. Check for uniqueness against the A–Z list of xml:ids used in the LEMDO project by clicking the Resources button in the top navigation bar of the LEMDO-dev website and then selecting All xml:ids (.txt version). In the A–Z list, search for the ID that you wish to use to ensure it has not already been used.
Never use spaces in file names.
Never use punctuation other than underscores in file names.
Always use lowercase for file extensions (i.e., .jpg, .png, .xml).
Note that while SVN can handle punctuation characters in file and folder names, files with punctuation and spaces in their names can still cause problems when they are turned into HTML files. To prevent such problems, always follow the above principles. For example, rather than naming a file Fred’s notes on documentation.odt, use Fred_notes_on_documentation.odt.

Practice: Name Edition Files

Our practice for naming edition files follows scholarly conventions for play naming. IDs for Shakespeare plays have long been standardized; they are even listed in the Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Handbook. The Digital Renaissance Editions anthology has extended the implied principles for naming Shakespeare plays to all other plays. We use those IDs for editions.
When giving edition files a name, consult DRE Play IDs to find the ID for the play that you are adding. You can search for the play’s title using Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac). If you cannot find the title you are looking for, contact the LEMDO team, who will in turn consult with the DRE Co-Coordinating Editor Brett D. Greatley-Hirsch, who has established IDs for his own LEMDO-adjacent project, Bibliography of Editions of Early English Drama (BEEED). LEMDO adopts BEEED’s IDs for all non-Shakespearean plays.
Once you have the ID for your play, you will format the file name as emd followed by the play ID followed by an underscore and a descriptive identifier (e.g., genIntro or annotation). For example, the semi-diplomatic transcription for the first quarto of An Humorous Day’s Mirth (ID “AHDM”) is emdAHDM_Q1.xml.1
Standard descriptive identifiers:
Page Type Identifier
Edition page edition
Semi-diplomatic transcription of a folio text F (often followed by folio number, e.g., F1)
Semi-diplomatic transcription of a quarto text Q (often followed by quarto number, e.g., Q1)
Collation collation
Modernized text M
Annotations annotations (some legacy files have “Annotations” in their titles)
General introduction genIntro (some legacy files have “GenIntro” in their titles)
Textual introduction textIntro (some legacy files have “TextIntro” in their titles)
Bibliography bibliography (some legacy files have “Bibliography” in their titles)
Critical introduction critIntro (some legacy files have “CritIntro” in their titles)

Practice: Name Anthology Files

The file names for all anthology about pages must begin with the abbreviation for the anthology in lowercase letters (i.e., dre, emee, emdp, moms, qme, etc.). Following the anthology abbreviation, add an underscore and a descriptive identifier. For example, the file on the history of the DRE anthology is named dre_history.xml.

Images

LEMDO has slightly different naming protocols for image files depending on whether the images are for an edition, an anthology, or LEMDO documentation:
Images for editions: Format as your edition ID followed by an underscore and a descriptive identifier. E.g., HW_almanac.jpg
Images for anthologies: Format as your anthology ID followed by an underscore and a descriptive identifier. E.g., moms_hughAlley_mayor.jpg
Images for documentation: Format as the name of the documentation file that the image will be included in followed by an underscore and a descriptive identifier. E.g., learn_editorTools_projectView.png
For more information on naming and saving image files, see Add Images to the Repository.

Practice: Name Facsimiles Files

LEMDO’s convention for facsimile file names is to include the ID of the text to which the facsimiles are connected. When you name a facsimile file, format the file name as: facs followed by an underscore, then your edition ID, another underscore, the siglum, another underscore, the library ID, another underscore and the copy number (if there is one). The pattern to follow is facs_work_siglum_library_copy.xml.
For more information on naming and saving facsimile files, and for a table containing the IDs for holding libraries, see Name and Store Facsimiles.

Practice: Name Performance Video Files

Performance video metadata files should be named as follows: emd, the edition ID, an underscore, and the word video (if the file describes a video of the entire performance). If the metadata file captures information about a video recording of a scene or an act, add an underscore followed by scene or act and the number of the scene or act. Normally, it makes more sense to provide recordings of scenes rather than acts.
Note that when we include act or scene numbers, we always keep the number of digits the same. If there are more than ten scenes in your play, all numbers in the performance file names must have two digits (e.g., _scene01, _scene02 … _scene09, _scene10). Because there are typically a maximum of five acts, we only need to have single digit numbers (e.g., _act1, _act2 … _act4, _act5).
The following table gives the specific pattern to follow for each scenario of performance videos:
Scenario Pattern
The file contains the metadata for the video of the entire performance. emdABBR_video.xml
The file contains the metadata for the video of a single scene and the play contains ten or more scenes. emdABBR_video_scene01.xml
The file contains the metadata for the video of a single scene and the play contains nine or fewer scenes. emdABBR_video_scene1.xml
The file contains the metadata for the video of a single act. emdABBR_video_act1.xml
Examples: emdFV_video, emdFV_video_scene09.

Practice: Name Documentation Files

All documentation files should start with learn, followed by an underscore, followed by a descriptive identifier. For example, the file name for this documentation file is learn_namingConventions.xml.
For more detailed information on naming documentation files, see Create and Name Documentation Files.

Practice: Name Shared Database Files

IDs for sitewide databases must be structured as follows: XXXX#, where X is an uppercase letter and # is a number consisting of one or more digits.
The letters and numbers used for infrastructure IDs are not arbitrary: use the first four meaningful letters of the title of the file. If the file you are naming uses a particular 4-letter combination for the first time in our database, the number will be 1. Otherwise, find the next available number in the A–Z Index for this particular 4-letter combination. For example, when you create a personography file, the first four letters are “PERS”. Given that our sitewide personography file was the first instance of this letter combination, the number was 1: PERS1.xml. Do not make a new personography file unless you been instructed to do so by the LEMDO team.
Always check your ID against the A–Z Index before finalizing it and committing the file. You can access the A–Z Index through the LEMDO-dev site by clicking on Resources in the top navigation bar and selecting All xml:ids (.txt version).

Notes

1.Note that for semi-diplomatic transcriptions, we give a numbered siglum (e.g., Q1, F1) if there are more than one early editions. For plays with only one early edition, we do not include a number in their sigla (e.g., Q, F).↑

Prosopography

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 Beatrice 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.

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 Name Files Following LEMDO Naming Conventions
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.