Quickstart for Anthology Leads

This documentation is for anthology leads. If you lead or co-lead a project that uses the LEMDO repository and publishing platform (DRE, EMDP, EMEE, MoMS, NISE, QME, or EMEE), you are an anthology lead in LEMDO’s ecosystem. In the context of your project, you probably have a title like Coordinating Editor or General Editor.
Bookmark this page and return to it often. It is your gateway into the resources you need to build your anthology, support your editors and editorial assistants, and liaise with us.

Introduction

As an anthology lead, you are responsible for
knowing what your editors, editorial assistants/encoders, and (if relevant) front-end web developer need to do, and
guiding them to training opportunities, documentation, and support from the LEMDO team when needed.
Please read Quickstart for Editors, Quickstart for Encoders, and Quickstart for Developers so that you have a good general sense of what editors, encoders, and developers will be doing in the LEMDO ecosytem.
All components of a LEMDO anthology, including the editions therein, must be marked up using LEMDO’s customization of TEI-XML before they can be published. If you have no or limited experience with TEI markup, we strongly recommend that you add to your editorial team someone who does have experience with TEI. We also encourage you to read our Introduction to Markup, XML, and TEI so that you understand why your editors are marking up texts in TEI. LEMDO offers regular training in TEI and has published a series of training videos on YouTube. You are very welcome to attend training sessions and to ask questions of the LEMDO team.

Relationship of Anthology to Platform

An anthology is an independent editorial project that chooses to use the LEMDO platform either (1) for encoding files, generating a static HTML site, and publishing that site with the University of Victoria (UVic), or (2) for encoding files and generating a static HTML site for hosting elsewhere. Anthologies have their own editorial and advisory boards. They are responsible for commissioning and supporting their own editors, and, eventually, for arranging for scholarly peer review. LEMDO will supply a contract to each editor, provide training and some support (as LEMDO’s funding and time permits), and undertake a review of the TEI markup. The University of Victoria ePublishing Services will do a sign-off review of any print publications.
Some of the anthologies using the LEMDO platform are legacy anthologies that had been published on the old ISE platform. These legacy anthologies are the ISE, QME, and DRE projects. UVic has tasked LEMDO with fulfilling the outstanding obligations of the former ISE Inc. Others are new anthologies that have negotiated with LEMDO and UVic to use the platform (e.g., MoMS). Still others are legacy projects from other sources (e.g., EMDP, CWBJO). There is information for both types of anthologies on the LEMDO site. See Legacy Projects and Propose Anthology.

Consistency and Customization

The point of LEMDO is to provide an encoding and editing platform that can be used by scholars across our field to prepare editions of early modern dramatic works (and sometimes other types of works). The advantage of consistency is that editions prepared on the LEMDO platform are interoperable and, ultimately, re-combinable into new anthologies if all parties agree. Therefore, the TEI tagset and encoding protocols must be consistent across all anthologies.
Some features are customizable. As anthology lead, you will write your own About pages and create your own menus. You may customize the look and brand of your anthology’s collection of static HTML pages (i.e., your website) using an anthology-specific Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). You have some control over the behaviours of things like pop-ups via an anthology-specific JavaScript file.

Style Guidelines

LEMDO has worked closely with the Coordinating Editors of Digital Renaissance Editions on the preparation of the DRE Editorial Guidelines, which contain a set of style guidelines. LEMDO’s encoding guidelines are designed to realize the editorial principles of those guidelines. We advise new anthologies to adopt the DRE Editorial Guidelines. You are, however, welcome to create and follow your own style guidelines for your About pages, edition critical paratexts, and edition apparatus should you so choose. You are responsible for ensuring that your anthology and your editors follow your style guidelines.
There are a few style matters that must be consistent across all anthologies using the LEMDO platform, including the way that sources are cited. All anthologies share a LEMDO-wide bibliography. These matters are set out in Style Guidelines for Anthologies.

Anthology-Level Editorial Decisions

If you choose to write your own editorial guidelines, they must be achievable through the LEMDO encoding guidelines. For example, LEMDO does not currently offer support for versioned editions or extended variants, so you cannot require those of your editors. LEMDO has a set of annotation types that you must follow. If you wanted to add a new annotation type, you would have to submit a feature request to LEMDO before making this type of annotation required of your editors. You will want to consult with the LEMDO project leads before you finalize your editorial guidelines.
LEMDO has anticipated a number of points on which anthologies will want some latitude. These points are flagged throughout the documentation with phrases like Check with your anthology lead. Pages with such phrases also have metadata that ensures they show up in a search for documentation pitched at anthology leads.

Workflow to Get Started with LEMDO

Before you can begin your working on your anthology pages, you (or your delegate, such as a Research Assistant) must take the following steps to be set up to work with LEMDO’s technologies:
Read this page.
Email the LEMDO team to receive more detailed instructions on getting started and to set up an initial training meeting.
Apply for a UVic affiliate ID and a NetLink ID if you are not at UVic. For information on how to do so, see Get a NetLink ID.
Send us your NetLink ID. (UVic students, staff, and faculty: your NetLink ID is your UVic email handle.)
Send us a bio-bibliographical note for our list of contributors. At this point, we will create an xml:id for you and send it to you.
Familiarize yourself with the LEMDO repository. Read The LEMDO Platform and Repository and Repository Structure, and watch our Repository Tour on YouTube.
Learn how to work in your command line. Read Work in the Command Line (Terminal).
Install a Subversion (SVN) client. Read Install a Subversion Client: Mac, Install a Subversion Client: Windows, or Install a Subversion Client: Linux as appropriate for your OS.
Check out the LEMDO repository. Read Check Out the LEMDO Repository.
Install Oxygen (the application that we use to edit XML). Read Install Oxygen.
Do a test commit with a LEMDO team member.
Familiarize yourself with the standard command line workflow that you will follow each work session. Read Workflow for Working in the Command Line (Terminal). We recommend bookmarking that documentation page; you will want to refer to it frequently as you encode.
You will find additional documentation for beginning work with LEMDO in Chapter 2. Getting Started with LEMDO.

Typical Workflow for Anthology Leads

Once you have gotten set up to work in the repository, you will likely follow this workflow:
Ask the LEMDO team to create a directory for your anthology in the LEMDO repository.
Write and encode your anthology About pages.
Decide how you want to customize the look and functionality of your anthology.
Customize your anthology, including adding images, uploading a logo, updating your navigation bar, and specifying anthology colour scheme. Depending on what you wish to customize and your technical expertise, you may need to hire a front-end developer to work with you at this stage.1
Decide which editions and anthology pages you will include in your first anthology release.
Arrange for peer-review of editions and your anthology as needed.
Work with the LEMDO project manager to set up workflows leading up to your first release.
Work with the LEMDO team to publish a static, numbered release of your anthology. Note that you will continue adding pages and editions in iterative releases until your anthology is complete.

Supporting Your Editors’ Workflow

You will need to support your editors as they move through the LEMDO editorial and encoding workflows. Please familiarize yourself with our Documentation Index so that you can direct editors to the appropriate documentation as required.
We recommend that you work through the items below in the order they are listed.
If you are new to TEI and XML, read Introduction to Markup, XML, and TEI.
Skim through the entire chapter on Editions and Licensing so that you understand the relationship between editions and anthologies. You will want to return to this chapter often.
If you are going to be using the platform yourself (as opposed to delegating the oversight of encoding to other team members), read through The LEMDO Platform.
Familiarize yourself with the table of contents for the documentation so that you are ready to support your editors as they move through the editorial workflow. See Documentation Index.
Practice searching the documentation. You can quickly search for all documentation that has been written specifically for anthology leads by going to the search page and selecting Documentation from the Document Types menu and Anthology Lead from the LEMDO Target Audience menu.

Further Reading

In addition to the getting started documentation pages, anthology leads typically will want to bookmark the following pages:
You will find documentation chapters on encoding each piece of an edition in our documentation index. The chapters are laid out to reflect the typcial encoding workflow described in Typical Workflow for Editors, starting with semi-diplomatic transcriptions and ending with critical paratexts.

Notes

1.Please do not hire an inexperienced developer. Student and newly graduated developers will make more work for LEMDO. If you have funds, we can match you up with a freelance developer who understands LEMDO well.↑

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.

Rylyn Christensen

Rylyn Christensen is an English major at the University of Victoria.

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

Digital Renaissance Editions Anthology Leads and Co-Coordinating Editors (DREC1)

Brett Greatley-Hirsch, Janelle Jenstad, James Mardock, and Sarah Neville.

Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE1)

The Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) was a major digital humanities project created by Emeritus Professor Michael Best at the University of Victoria. The ISE server was retired in 2018 but a final staticized HTML version of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project is still hosted at UVic.

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

xml:id
“A unique value that we use to tag an entity. Strictly speaking, @xml:id is an attribute that can be added to any XML element. We use it as a shorthand for “value of the xml:id”. Every person, role, glyph, ligature, bibliographical entry, act, scene, speech, paragraph, page beginning, XML file, division within XML files, and anchor has a unique xml:id value, some of which are assigned automatically during the processing of our XML files.”

Metadata

Authority title Quickstart for Anthology Leads
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.