Proposing a TEI-Encoding Project for the Wesley Works

Abstract

The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), a branch of XML, is a mature standard for encoding texts that was developed three decades ago and continues to be improved and expanded upon today. Learn about how TEI was centrally imagined for a project devoted to a corpus of John Wesley material. We will begin by explaining why we chose to use TEI for the project and reviewing the considerations inherent in transitioning from a longstanding print-based project to a digital project, including the challenges of converting thousands of pages of text across different file types into rudimentary TEI. Next, we will move into topics specific to TEI encoding practices, including the creation of XML tagsets designed to maximize the use value of the Wesley Works for its various audiences: scholars, librarians, and clergy. Finally, we will show the TEI in action by sharing an example of an XML file from our first round of encoding.