The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a joint North American and European project to develop an internationally‐recognized set of guidelines for the creation and interchange of electronic texts for research in the humanities and related disciplines. The project is sponsored by the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH), the Association for Computational Linguistics (ASC), and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) and has developed a set of SGML‐based encoding schemes to standardize the electronic mark‐up of scholarly texts.
TEI document type definitions (DTDs) have gained wide acceptance over the past few years and have been used in many e‐text archives and other libraries and research centers. The TEI Home Page maintained by the Computer Center of the University of Illinois at Chicago serves as a gateway to resources and information about the different encoding schemes and the project itself. The site contains links to pages on the history and organization of the initiative, online tutorials and papers, the text of the TEI Guidelines, and other documents about the project. Scholars, librarians, archivists, programmers, and information technology specialists interested in researching TEI or in implementing a TEI program will all find this site an indispensable source of general and technical information.
The site is simple to navigate and provides a well‐organized set of links to pages on various aspects of the initiative, although users could get somewhat lost in the extensive network of links to technical reports. The Description and History pages give a good overview of the development of the guidelines from the Poughkeepsie Planning Conference at Vassar in 1987 to the adoption of the latest form of the TEI Guidelines (TEI P3) in May, 1994.
The pages devoted to the organization of TEI provide links and contact information for the editors, steering committee, advisory board, technical review committee, and other TEI committees and working groups. Those seeking detailed outlines of the TEI DTDs and encoding schemes can use the introductions and tutorials (which are also available in Italian and French) or the other documentation provided.
The site also provides access to the full text of the TEI Guidelines in both print and electronic formats. There are order forms for 1400‐page two‐volume printed copies of the manual which cost $75 plus shipping charges and CD‐ROM versions. But free online versions can be downloaded through anonymous ftp or over the Web in ASCII, SGML, and other standard formats. Links to searchable online versions of the Guidelines produced by the University of Virginia and University of Michigan Libraries are useful for those who want to consult specific sections of the Guidelines or who want to learn more about TEI headers or tag sets.
Other helpful links from the TEI Home Page include hyperlinked alphabetical and topical lists of projects using the Guidelines, TEI‐related bulletin boards, information about workshops, conferences, and TEI/SGML resources, and papers created by or for TEI editors, committees, and groups. The site contains numerous conference papers and reports on applications of TEI and on the interchange of electronic texts in the academic community.
With its wealth of documents and links to other sites, the TEI Home Page is an excellent clearinghouse for TEI‐related materials which all those concerned with e‐text projects should consult. Those who are unfamiliar with SGML, XML, or TEI should examine the introductory essays or make use of the links to the basic mark‐up language primers provided. Users who have had experience working with TEI programs can benefit from the technical specifications and the comprehensive discussions of the encoding syntax. Any institution interested in publishing or exchanging electronic texts should bookmark this site.
