- Tei-council - lists.tei-c.org

Fwd: About TEI projects
by Elisa Beshero-Bondar 09 May '26

09 May '26

Hi Council, This morning I received a curious message addressed to a pretty rarely-used e-mail address: council(a)tei-c.org with subject line: "About TEI projects". I wonder if any of us have met the sender, Lebron Letchev? He seems to be someone with a technical background, very keen on databases, and having some difficulty, possibly some irritation about understanding what TEI is for. I momentarily forgot that only the Council chair receives mail at this address (possibly previous Council chairs too). He sounds a little like a crank, so I hesitated to reply to his message, but I found my way to a reply that I hope is useful, and potentially helpful when we meet others who don't understand why we TEI. I'm forwarding his message and my reply as a curiosity. Cheers, Elisa ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Elisa Beshero-Bondar <ebbondar(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat, May 9, 2026 at 12:07 PM Subject: Re: About TEI projects To: LEBRON LETCHEV <lebronletchev(a)gmail.com> Dear Lebron (if I may), The TEI is not a product for sale, so I do not understand your question about purchasing a "package". The TEI certainly does provide guidance on document data modeling for cultural heritage projects, and it is supported by a number of databases that handle XML structures, such as the free and open source eXist-dB. TEI XML may be stored and indexed and retrieved in a database, but it is not restricted to this use. Using TEI is simply a decision, and perhaps it is called for when information is more complex than you can describe in columns. Why would people ever turn to the TEI to represent data? Let me present you an example application of the TEI that does not involve database software and that expresses its TEI semantics directly in the web browser. The project involves study of an ancient manuscript written in a language that is unknown today: * The manuscript contains images of plants and animals and people that can be categorized, studied, conjectured about. It also contains glyphs that people have been attempting to study. * The organization of the pages in the manuscript is a little unusual: We can see a regular pattern of how the vellum was folded and cut and organized into bundles, but in some places, leaves have been torn out, and there is some damage on some of the surfaces. * There is evidence of multiple "hands" writing on the page surfaces. * The page surfaces themselves contain material evidence of how the manuscript was made and how it was bound and shared over time among collectors. Scholars are attempting to trace where it originated. A feature of TEI XML for scholars is that it is designed to express what is known and recognized, and also to identify precisely what is unknown. It is exemplary and powerful for organizing metadata (data about the data) in either "stand-off" or "inline" ways as helpful: with annotations running within the markup structures pinned to external reference structures. Much of this will feel like working with a database, but it is not restricted to database technologies. The case we describe here is one that has lately involved migration: * from one format of ASCII representation in a nonstandard text format used by the manuscript researchers, and * into the TEI, for the purpose of organizing the information, representing the document, and its metadata in a standard way that is recognized and workable for scholars around the world. The TEI XML data of this project can be itself stored and processed with a database, but it is also a standalone document in its own right, expressing and recording information in a way that is both human- and machine-readable. The scholar working on transforming this to TEI was also thinking of how to represent and share the work. She indicated in a project meeting that she did not want to lose the meaningful encoding of the TEI in publishing it on a website, because HTML elements are too simply about representation than about meaning. When she indicated this, we realized that she would best work with CETEIcean (https://teic.github.io/CETEIcean/) a JavaScript library developed to express the TEI directly in the web browser without losing semantics, and instead, enhancing them with CSS and interactive JS where this would be advantageous. Similar to our scholar's recognition that HTML would be too simple and "lossy", the grid structure of a database may also oversimplify patterns of data that can be intricately "deep" in places and entirely blank in others. Databases can be useful in retrieving TEI data and indexing it, and specialized databases exist that help with creating search engines that support websites, but databases are not the only way to work with TEI data. Many of us in the TEI community like to work with databases as you do, but the TEI is not itself bound to database software. TEI is specifically designed to outlast changes in software and technologies and is simply an interchange format for representing document data. I hope this helps you to understand the TEI and why people choose to use it in projects. All best, Elisa -- Elisa Beshero-Bondar, PhD TEI Technical Council Chair Program Chair of Digital Media, Arts, and Technology | Professor of Digital Humanities | Director of the Digital Humanities Lab at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Development site: https://newtfire.org On Sat, May 9, 2026 at 6:06 AM LEBRON LETCHEV <lebronletchev(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello, > > I want to know exactly what is the difference between encoding a text > (title, author, year, publisher, and so on) and create a database with > heads like title, author, year, publisher, and so on. According to link > https://programminghistorian.org/en/lessons/encoding-texts-tei-1#a-minimal-…, > in "A Minimal TEI Document", the body contains the similar text that a > database memo would contain and the "encoding" title, name, publishing > could be arranged into a database in separated columns. > > I work with academic projects since 2001, I have some interesting projects > online, now all of them under "recosntruction" after cloudflare. Sincerely > speaking I love databases. I would like to know why must I buy your package > instead to use a free database with programming evidently. > > In short, its essential a database behind the scene, all data are storage > in a database. Html/CSS are used in the front end, so where stay the TEI? > > Best regards > > LL >

1 0

May Council Meetings
by Elisa Beshero-Bondar 06 May '26

06 May '26

Dear Council, Most of us have now responded to Torsten's general calendar poll regarding your availability in May and June. That poll at this late moment indicates that Wednesday dates are best for most of the group, for 90-minute meetings to begin at *9am PDT | noon EDT | 5pm BST | 6pm CEST*. We'll proceed to meet on: * *Wednesday May 6 *(in two days), for a meeting on P5 * *Wednesday May 20* for a meeting on P6. I'll post these on our Google Calendar and we'll circulate the agendas on Slack. The Zoom link will be the same as usual: - https://psu.zoom.us/j/98850059066?pwd=UzhBL2NFc1lweWYzS2xZd2dqYVZpdz09 - Meeting ID: 988 5005 9066 - Password: tei Thanks, everyone! Elisa -- Elisa Beshero-Bondar, PhD TEI Technical Council Chair Program Chair of Digital Media, Arts, and Technology | Professor of Digital Humanities | Director of the Digital Humanities Lab at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Development site: https://newtfire.org

2 1

April Council Call: Friday April 10? You decide...(Slack Poll)
by Elisa Beshero-Bondar 07 Apr '26

07 Apr '26

Greetings, TEI Council! We've had a difficult time sorting out an April meeting, but we've winnowed down the options to Friday April 10 or Friday April 24. For the details, please see the Council Slack channel, where I launched a Slack poll to help us decide on which of the two dates / times to go with. I have not heard from 4 of you, but at the moment, the vote stands 7 to 6 in favor of meeting this Friday April 10 6:30 – 8am PDT | 9:30 - 11am EDT | 2:30 – 4pm BST | 3:30 – 5pm CEST. I'd like to decide this tomorrow so we can be ready for the meeting this Friday if it shall indeed be then! Thanks, everyone! Elisa -- Elisa Beshero-Bondar, PhD TEI Technical Council Chair Program Chair of Digital Media, Arts, and Technology | Professor of Digital Humanities | Director of the Digital Humanities Lab at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Development site: https://newtfire.org

3 3

Reminder (by Tues March 24): Finalize Vote for April Council Meeting Times
by Elisa Beshero-Bondar 24 Mar '26

24 Mar '26

Dear Council, Just a reminder: Would each of you check that you've indeed voted in the current WhenAvailable poll? As of today, I see only 6 of you have responded. This poll is to help us set our meeting dates for April and after. Here's the current poll: https://whenavailable.com/invite/JlwnUrXnj9pjbQNsgczt You may have voted in my original, poorly conceived poll that would only work for dates before March 29 (prior to the Europe change to Summer Time). We decided to start over with a new calendar poll that is due to close on March 24. (I'll shift it to close on March 25 since I'm late in reminding you all.) Thanks, everyone! Elisa -- Elisa Beshero-Bondar, PhD TEI Technical Council Chair Program Chair of Digital Media, Arts, and Technology | Professor of Digital Humanities | Director of the Digital Humanities Lab at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Development site: https://newtfire.org

1 1

Freeze is lifted!
by Patricia O'Connor 18 Feb '26

18 Feb '26

Dear all, Helena, Torsten, and I have successfully released the Guidelines 4.11.0 and the Stylesheets 7.60.0. The freeze is lifted, please feel free to push to dev again. Best, Trisha Dr Patricia O Connor (she/her) PhD in Digital Humanities and Old English TEI Technical Council Member, TEI-C <https://tei-c.org/activities/council/> 2023-2028 Digital Officer of Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland (TOEBI <https://www.toebi.org.uk/committee/>) Research Assistant, OG(H)AM <https://ogham.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/project-team/> 2024-2025 Research Assistant, RESCAPE <https://www.chartes.psl.eu/en/patricia-o-connor> 2023-2024 Research Assistant, Transatlantic Intellectual Networks <https://research.ncl.ac.uk/atnu/projects/transatlanticintellectualnetworks/> 2022 Research Assistant, CLASP <https://clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/> 2021-2022 TEI Communications Officer, TEI-C <https://tei-c.org/> 2021-2023 Research Assistant, School of English, UCC 2020 Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholar 2016-2018 Web: www.research.ie Twitter <https://twitter.com/trishaoconnor88> - LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-o-connor-7653ba55/> - Website <http://trishaoconnor.com/>

1 0

Freeze announcement
by Patricia O'Connor 17 Feb '26

17 Feb '26

Dear all, As we are releasing TEI version 4.11.0 and the Stylesheets version 7.60.0 tomorrow, we have created the release branches and are now officially in freeze. Please do not commit any changes to the dev or release branches until the release is finished. We will send a follow up notice once the release is complete. Kind regards, Trisha Dr Patricia O Connor (she/her) PhD in Digital Humanities and Old English TEI Technical Council Member, TEI-C <https://tei-c.org/activities/council/> 2023-2028 Digital Officer of Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland (TOEBI <https://www.toebi.org.uk/committee/>) Research Assistant, OG(H)AM <https://ogham.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/project-team/> 2024-2025 Research Assistant, RESCAPE <https://www.chartes.psl.eu/en/patricia-o-connor> 2023-2024 Research Assistant, Transatlantic Intellectual Networks <https://research.ncl.ac.uk/atnu/projects/transatlanticintellectualnetworks/> 2022 Research Assistant, CLASP <https://clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/> 2021-2022 TEI Communications Officer, TEI-C <https://tei-c.org/> 2021-2023 Research Assistant, School of English, UCC 2020 Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholar 2016-2018 Web: www.research.ie Twitter <https://twitter.com/trishaoconnor88> - LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-o-connor-7653ba55/> - Website <http://trishaoconnor.com/>

1 0

Next Stylesheets meeting: Wednesday Jan 28th
by H B S 27 Jan '26

27 Jan '26

Dear all, The next Stylesheets meeting will take place on Wednesday, January 28th, at 11:00–12:30 PST | 14:00–15:30 EST | 19:00–20:30 UTC | 20:00–21:30 CET. Here you have the agenda: feel free to add any issues you would like to discuss https://docs.google.com/document/d/13_uGgScwVFkGRooQEiW4dkK-L3dlxXn98fYx9VY… Best, Helena

1 0

F2F Würzburg
by Torsten Roeder 25 Jan '26

25 Jan '26

Dear all, it is six weeks before the F2F Council Meething in Würzburg! I am happy to welcome you at my institution. Concerning lodging: Hotels ins Würzburg are quite small and can be expensive if you book late. None of the university contractors has room for the whole group (I called four of them). I set up a list of contractor hotels (cost is about 15% less than normal rate). Please make your reservation requests individually at your preferred hotel and make a note in the planning document, so we know where everybody is staying. Do it now, because in two weeks the city could be booked out. My recommendations (university rate included) are in the planning document, but of course you can book anything else if you like :) Here is the updated planning document with all the information you should require: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ispfaFsNV_u1g3_k3UHDsHEDGKA1amleTJ7Z3_f… All the best Torsten -- Dr. phil. Torsten Roeder @toroe@fedihum.org Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik https://www.i-d-e.de Universität Würzburg Zentrum für Philologie und Digitalität (ZPD) Emil-Hilb-Weg 23 97074 Würzburg Materialität (in) der Digitalität: Digitale Editionen als Hybrid aus Daten und Interface https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.14220/9783737015936.53 D64: Scientific Explorations of Computer Game History https://www.polyplay.xyz/D64-Scientific-Explorations-of-Computer-Game-Histo…

3 2

December Call + Scheduling the Spring 2026 Face-To-Face Council Meeting
by Elisa Beshero-Bondar 25 Nov '25

25 Nov '25

Dear TEI Council members, Following the responses to our When2Meet poll, the December Council call will be on *Thursday December 18 from 7 – 8:30am PST | 10 – 11:30am EST | 3 – 4:30pm UTC | 4 – 5:30pm CET*. I've updated the TEI Board/Council calendar, but you may want to update your personal calendars, too. I will follow up soon with a calendar poll for the meetings in the new year 2026 from January onward. We also need to set some definite plans for our F2F meeting. Some scheduling parameters: - We would like to meet for 3.5 days if we can given that we're discussing P5 and P6 and have much to discuss in this special meeting. - March is probably better than May or June because: we'd like to be proposing some papers or panels / events on P6 efforts for the TEI 2026 conference to be held in August. - We have been discussing this week on Slack: *Sunday March 8 – Saturday March 14.* The week is helpful for us for a couple of reasons: 1) James Cummings can host us in Newcastle then (and Martina could host us in Graz). Though we love Graz, the consensus in Slack was leading us to Newcastle as the better option. 2) This is a much better week for me because (for once) I don't teach in that week. (But if we had to choose a different week, I would make arrangements as I always do.) 3) Several of you had already indicated in Slack that the week is good and also would like to have this arranged in the calendar as soon as we can. I have pinned a poll in Slack <https://tei-c.slack.com/archives/C06291YV55Y/p1764084159650229> that I ask each of you to fill out to indicate dates that would work for you within that week and also just to determine whether most of us can attend then. We can try to find another week if necessary, but I'm really hoping this one will work for us, even if a few of you can only attend part of the time. Many thanks for your help with this important Council F2F! Elisa -- Elisa Beshero-Bondar, PhD TEI Technical Council Chair Program Chair of Digital Media, Arts, and Technology | Professor of Digital Humanities | Director of the Digital Humanities Lab at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Development site: https://newtfire.org

1 0

Stylesheets meeting today
by H B S 28 Oct '25

28 Oct '25

Dear all, The next Stylesheets meeting will take place today, October 28th, at 10:00–11:30 PST | 13:00–14:30 EST | 17:00–18:30 UTC | 18:00–19:30 CET. Here you have the agenda: feel free to add any issues you would like to discuss https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NNfj0b7utonqFU7BeiE_KuhowGthH_C6wnQE1fk… Best, Helena

1 0