Introduction to Quickstart Guidelines

This documentation is for all those who are new to working with LEMDO, including editors, encoders, anthology leads, and developers. It will direct you towards the best place to start navigating our documentation from based on your role with LEMDO.

Prior Reading

Rationale

The first question you are likely to ask is Where do I start? The Quickstart documents are designed to tell you what to do first and then guide you to the documentation you need.

Introduction

Across our documentation (including in our Quickstarts), we refers to the LEMDO team based at the University of Victoria. You refers to you, the reader of this page. You are welcome to email us at any time with questions. We also welcome suggestions that will improve this documentation for future readers.

Ask Questions

If you don’t understand an aspect of documentation as you read through it, please ask questions of the LEMDO team. You are not expected to know and understand everything in this documentation. Ask questions about TEI, XML, and encoding, and also ask questions about Shakespeare, early modern bookmaking, and early modernized texts generally. When you ask questions, you are clarifying for yourself and helping to make the documentation clearer for those working on LEMDO in the future.
Note: If you are a research assistant or editorial assistant, you will want to direct questions about the play to the editor of the play, who may in turn consult their anthology lead. LEMDO defers to anthology leads on textual or editorial matters.

Select Your Quickstart

There are various Quickstart documents, each written for a different user group. Scan the list below to find the right Quickstart for you. You may inhabit different roles at different times. Come back to these Quickstarts as your roles evolve.
Are you an anthology lead coordinating or directing a major editorial project or anthology (e.g., DRE, NISE, QME, MoMS)?
Start your work with the Quickstart for Anthology Leads and follow the prompts therein to other Quickstarts.
Are you an editor new to TEI?
Learn about TEI with the Introduction to Markup, XML, and TEI.
Learn how to use the LEMDO platform with Quickstart for Repository Users.
Proceed to the Quickstart for Editors and follow the prompts therein.
Are you an editor who is already familiar with TEI?
Learn how to use the LEMDO platform with Quickstart for Repository Users.
Proceed to the Quickstart for Editors and follow the prompts therein.
Are you editing a text for the MoMS (MoEML Mayoral Shows) Anthology?
Start with the Quickstart for MoMS Editors and follow the prompts therein to other Quickstarts.
Are you a research assistant and/or encoder working with a LEMDO Editor?
If you are unfamiliar with TEI, learn about TEI first with the Introduction to Markup, XML, and TEI.
If you already know TEI, proceed directly to Quickstart for Encoders.
Are you a remediator working on converted IML, TCP, or CWBJ files?
If you are unfamiliar with TEI, learn TEI first with the Introduction to Markup, XML, and TEI.
If you already know TEI, proceed to the Quickstart for Remediators.
Are you a research assistant, encoder, and/or remediator working in the Humanities Computing and Media Centre (HCMC) at UVic?
Start with Quickstart for Research Assistants Working in HCMC and follow the prompts therein to other Quickstarts.
Are you a programmer, developer, or designer?
Ask the LEMDO director (lemdo@uvic.ca) to facilitate an email introduction to an experienced LEMDO developer and/or designer.

Prosopography

Chloe Mee

Chloe Mee (she/her) worked as a research assistant with the LEMDO team over several periods from 2022 to 2025. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 2025 with a BA (Hons with distinction) in English. She will be studying at the University of British Columbia to complete her MA in English. Chloe collaborated with the LEMDO team on a VKURA internship in summer 2022, mainly focusing on Hamlet quartos. Following her internship, she also worked as a research assistant in 2022–23 and 2025.

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.

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