CHAPTER 4.1 SGML/XML:

SGML/XML IN THE HUMANITIES: INTRO



SGML/XML IN THE HUMANITIES ELECTRONIC TEXT CENTER, UNIV. OF VIRGINIA RESOURCES OCLC'S "FRED" HOME PAGE




SGML/XML IN THE HUMANITIES

In addition to markup languages such as MathML and CML (Chemical Markup Language), there also are various humanities-oriented markup languages that are being created, the most notable being the TEI DTD (Text Encoding Initiative) and TEI Lite DTD. Markup languages for music are also being developed.

SGML/XML makes it easy for students to create customized markup languages for specific projects. E.g., one humanities researcher has developed an XML-based "Play Markup Language" for marking-up Shakespeare's plays. Typical tags include <persona>, <scene>, <stagedir>, <speech> and <speaker>.
Another researcher developed a "Fables" markup language for marking up Aesop's fables. It is an instance of the (SGML-based) TEI DTD. Typical tags include <RS type="moral"> and <publisher>.

Such markup allows customized style and layout when displayed in Web browsers, and also allows analysis and advanced database search capability -- in effect, any content-based manipulation that a software designer desires.

Such capabilities are very helpful in humanities research, as evidenced by IATH's "The World of Dante" site, IATH's Rossetti Archive, and IATH's Blake Archive, all of which will be examined in Sections 4.3-4.5 .


IATH (The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville) is one of many research groups working with SGML and preparing SGML software for computer-based humanities study.

IATH's goal, as stated on its home page (http://www.iath.virginia.edu), is to "explore and expand the potential of information technology as a tool for humanities research."
The home page includes links to "Reports, Projects, and Works in Progress," and "Software" (which will be discussed in Section 4.2).

IATH is supported by corporations, foundations, individuals, and the University of Virginia. Corporate and foundation sponsors include The AT&T Foundation, The Getty Grant Program, IBM, Inso Corporation, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Sprint, and Sun Microsystems.







UNIV. OF VIRGINIA'S ELECTRONIC TEXT CENTER

The home page of the University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center, is at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/
(An older URL is http://www.lib.virginia.edu/etext/ETC.html)


"The Univ. of Virginia has pioneered a number of highly successful uses of SGML (TEI DTD) in delivering online electronic texts, including structured- text searches."
"Since 1992, the Electronic Text Center has combined an online archive of thousands of SGML-encoded electronic texts with a library-based Center housing hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text."
"Through ongoing training sessions and support of individual teaching and research projects, the Center is building a diverse user community locally, and providing a model for similar enterprises at other institutions."
**[ Quoted from http://www.sil.org/sgml/acadapps.html ]**







RESOURCES

A large list of SGML projects in academia, including many humanities computing projects, can be found at

http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/acadapps.html [OASIS consortium]







OCLC'S "FRED" HOME PAGE

Fred is a free, automatic, DTD-creation service, courtesy of OCLC. (OCLC is the Online Computer Library Center, Inc., a nonprofit, library computer service and research organization.)

Just type (or cut-and-paste) a marked-up document into Fred's text-entry box, and Fred will automatically generate a SGML DTD for that particular document.



"TRY IT NOW !"

http://www.oclc.org/fred/

 This link will take you to the "Fred" home page.

http://www.oclc.org/fred/docs/create-dtd-text.html

 This link will take you directly to the DTD-creation screen.

(Before entering text, click your mouse in Fred's text-entry field
to make sure it is activated.)




You can try Fred with the following sample document (copy-and-paste it),
or you can try Fred with your own marked-up document! 


<mybooks>

   <oldbooks>
      <title>Symbolism in Melville's Works</title>
      <title>Allegory in Hawthorne's Short Stories</title>
   </oldbooks>

   <newbooks>
      <title>Computing and the Humanities</title>
   </newbooks>

</mybooks>





BACK TO: Project #1, Table of Contents
Current page was last modified/altered on: 8-31-98