“From text to structured edition – producing XML-TEI content” – wrap up
In cooperation with the projects Métopes and HIRMEOS, AEUP organized the workshop “From Text to Structured Edition – Producing XML-TEI Content”, from 11 to 13 December 2018 at Göttingen State and University Library.
Attendees
The workshop was aimed at editors and publishers who want to acquire knowledge and gain first hand experience with tools for creating standardized documents in XML. No previous knowledge was required, besides an open attitude towards new technologies and maybe yet unfamiliar standards.
There were 22 participants from member presses and other interested parties from Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Local organisation was coordinated by Margo Bargheer and Andrea Bertino.
The participants introduced themselves shortly and explained their interest in taking part in the workshop. Some said that they might need to implement new XML-workflow due to PlanS. Some already worked with XML-workflow, but wanted to know more how the Métopes project does it, and most participants were there to learn more about it.
Background and general information on XML based publishing
The first day focused on general information on XML based publishing and about the Métopes project.
Isabella Meinecke from the AEUP Board/Hamburg University Press welcomed all participants and reminded how the workshop came to be. It was at the AEUP workshop “Keeping up with the standards” in Riga earlier that year, where Dominique Roux and Edith Cannet were invited to do a presentation about XML-based workflows. The interest was overwhelming so the AEUP Board decided to organise a hands on workshop on XML-workflow.
After that Andrea Bertino, representing the host Göttingen University Library, informed about the practicalities for the three coming days.
A general introduction to tools, standards and especially platforms related to open access publishing as well as a short presentation of the HIRMEOS project, OPERAS and OpenEdition was made by Pierre Mournier (slides). Klaus Thoden, from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, presented the XML-TEI workflow developed for the Edition Open Access (EOA). Klaus is interested to use Metopes int the EOA workflow (slides).
The Métopes project
Then Dominique Roux presented the Métopes project, developed at Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines in Caen. Mr. Roux explained how and why it was started, and in what countries and organisations they cooperate with.
The project aims to develop a set of tools and methods to allow the distribution of digital content, ensuring the sustainability of content and metadata. Mr. Roux explained the benefits for publishers of an XML-workflow. The standardised format (XML-TEI) enables content aggregation of associated publishers and content providers (metadata and content) in established industry standards.
Dominique Roux and Edith Cannet also gave a short introduction to what the two following hands on days would include, giving some general information on working with the Métopes tool-kit and learning about its features and possibilities.
(slides)
Hands-on experience with Métopes software
The following two days offered hands-on experience with Métopes software. The participants of the workshop had been asked to bring with them documents with various kind of content to experiment on. They learned the basic steps, such as organizing files and folders and navigating the Métopes software, proceeding to more specific requirements of formatting. After tackling the issue of exporting the prepared file to XML format, different export formats from XML were discussed and practiced (epub, InDesign files etc).
The practical part included work on different data levels (chapter, article, whole book) and content elements (tables, pictures etc). As many publishers work with Adobe InDesign, the last day of the workshop was largely devoted to specific issues of importing XML to InDesign.
Feedback and future cooperation
The feedback from the participants of the workshop was very positive. Many suggestions were made regarding specific requirements of the publishers (such as integration with OJS), and future cooperation with Métopes was regarded as highly fruitful. The role of AEUP in this cooperation is best described as an intermediary and an aggregator of ideas.
If you have any questions regarding this workshop, please contact us at info@aeup.eu.