LINGUIST List 9.1229

Sun Sep 6 1998

FYI: TITUS, Ling Journals, TEI, Job Fair

Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <martylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. agnes korn, TITUS
2. Carter Clare, Online Access for Linguistics Journals
3. C M Sperberg-McQueen, the future of the Text Encoding Initiative
4. amhvid, CAREER FORUM & JOB FAIR IN MOSCOW

TITUS, the Frankfurt-based server of material related to Indo-European
studies, has been refashioned and updated (new adresses, courses,
studies programs, research projects...): http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de

Online Availability of Blackwell Publishers' Linguistics Journals

Did you know that all the linguistics journals published by Blackwell
Publishers are now available online? Electronic access to these
journals is available to members of any institution that has a
subscription to the printed edition. There are a variety of benefits
to using the online version of a journal such as unlimited browsing
and full text searching. It also offers the facility to download and
print articles. Online access is available via a number of service
providers.

For more information about online access please visit our website at
http//:www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/Static/online.htm Or contact:
Clare Carter, Journals Marketing, Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley
Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK. Tel: ++44 (0)1865 382340. Fax: ++44
(0)1865 381340. Email: ccarterblackwellpublishers.co.uk

Computational Intelligence
ISSN: 0824-7935

German Life and Letters 
ISSN: 0016-8777

Journal of Sociolinguistics
ISSN: 1360-6441

Language Learning
ISSN: 0023-8333

Mind & Language
ISSN: 0268-1064

Studia Linguistica
ISSN: 0039-3193

Syntax
ISSN: 1368-0005

Transactions of the Philological Society
ISSN: 0079-1636

World Englishes
ISSN: 0883-2919

As some readers of this list may be aware, the work of the Text
Encoding Initiative (TEI) has depended on short-term grant funds ever
since the project began in late 1987. While appropriate for a research
project, short term funding is not a secure foundation for the
continued maintenance and development of a standard. The TEI's
executive committee has therefore been considering alternative options
for long-term support of the TEI for some time now. Its current
intention is to encourage the establishment of some form of
membership-based consortium in order to secure ongoing funding and
organizational support for the TEI.

The purpose of this note is to inform potentially interested members
of the TEI community about this proposal, to solicit bids for hosting
such a consortium, and to initiate a wider debate about the future of
the TEI.

Note: If your institution is interested in bidding to host a TEI
consortium, please contact C. M. Sperberg-McQueen at teiuic.edu as
soon as possible. Preliminary discussion with some potential hosts is
already underway, with the intention of making a final decision in
January 1999.

More information about the TEI is available from its public discussion
list at tei-llistserv.uic.edu and its website at
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/tei; additional background information
relating to the consortium proposal is given below.

 ------

Background information

The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is an international cooperative
effort to develop and disseminate guidelines for the encoding and
interchange of machine-readable texts for research. Sponsored by the
Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH), the Association
for Computational Linguistics (ACL), and the Association for Literary
and Linguistic Computing (ALLC), the TEI began in 1988, published
drafts of its work in 1990 and 1992-93 for comment, and published the
Guidelines for Text Encoding and Interchange (TEI P3) in May 1994.
Since 1994, the TEI has largely concentrated on dissemination
activities, such as workshops and publications. Its proposals are
internationally recognized as essential material for anyone currently
considering serious academic work with electronic texts of any kind.

However, its Guidelines are now, after four years, in serious need of
revision and extension. A new round of technical work was carried out
in 1996-7, largely relying on volunteer effort and residual
funding. This work has yet to be published. In addition, the TEI has
recently chartered several new work groups to address in depth some
specific subject areas in which the existing Guidelines are clearly
incomplete or inadequate. A formal mechanism exists for these groups
to report their recommendations, but incorporating them into a
revision of the Guidelines will require further editorial and
dissemination effort.

As one specific example, the TEI has been heavily involved in the
development of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and related
specifications. The editors of the TEI both participated in the
design of XML, and one also served as a co-editor of the XML
specification; the TEI's extended-pointer notation has been taken as
the basis for the Xpointer language; the TEI's tag-set documentation
will be part of the input to the deliberations of the new XML Schema
and Datatyping Work Group sponsored by the World Wide Web
Consortium. Yet while there has been uch discussion of the need to
adjust the current TEI DTD o take account of XML and related
specifications, and although the relevant TEI work group has begun
identifying the required technical changes, no infrastructure exists
for publication and dissemination of the results of that work.

Over the last ten years, the Text Encoding Initiative has been funded
through grants from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, an
independent federal agency; Directorate General XIII of the Commission
of the European Union; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and the Social
Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The TEI cannot
rely indefinitely on such generosity, and in particular we do not
believe that it can or should continue in the absence of a reliable
and well-funded publishing and maintenance infrastructure. By far the
greatest contribution to the TEI's success, however, has been the
generous donation of time and expertise by the scores of researchers
who have served without compensation on TEI work groups and technical
committees; they and their host institutions have provided an
incalculable contribution to the preparation and dissemination of the
Guidelines. Their generosity, too, can best be put to use by a TEI
possessed of a reliable infrastructure.

As originally conceived, the TEI was expected to remain in existence
only as long as necessary for its Guidelines to be published, to be
used then by anyone interested in so doing. The Memorandum of
Understanding between the three sponsoring organizations which set up
the TEI makes reference to the need for some sort of maintenance
scheme for the Guidelines, but does not elaborate how it might be set
up.

It seems clear that the maintenance of complex technical
specifications like the TEI Guidelines is hard or impossible with at
least some level of ongoing technical and editorial work. Editorial
work must be funded, and there are inevitable travel costs both in the
development work, and in the dissemination activities necessary to
keep the TEI Guidelines up to date and usable by the community they
were created to benefit. The organizational structure of the TEI,
originally intended for a fixed-term project, must also be adapted to
serve its new role as an ongoing service effort.

The TEI executive committee has been discussing these issues for some
time and has tentatively concluded that an appropriate funding model
would be to establish a membership-based consortium, the object of
which will be to support the ongoing maintenance and development of
the TEI as well as to organize related dissemination activities. The
exact focus of such a consortium, the likely scope of its activities,
and its relationship with the original sponsoring organizations are
all yet to be determined. The executive committee seeks input from the
community of those engaged in computer-assisted work with textual
material, to confirm this decision and to help decide the many
questions it leaves unanswered.

Many thanks to all who have supported the TEI in the past; we hope,
with your help and continued support, to build on the TEI's success,
making it an even more useful tool for all those interested in the
creation and reuse of textual resources.

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen 
University of Illinois at Chicago

-Lou Burnard 
Oxford University

CAREER FORUM & JOB FAIR IN MOSCOW

The International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) will administer
the third annual Edmund S. Muskie & Freedom Support Act (Muskie/FSA)
Graduate Fellowship Programs' Career Forum & Job Fair in Moscow on
September 19, 1998. This event, sponsored by the United States
Information Agency (USIA), is open to graduates of university level US
government sponsored programs and independent graduates of US
universities currently residing in/fellows returning to the Russian
Federation. Russian and Western companies and organizations with
offices in the Russian Federation are invited to exhibit by
registering for a booth at the Fair.

The Career Forum & Job Fair is designed to promote networking among
alumni and newly returned fellows and to provide newly returned
fellows and alumni with information about the Russian job market and
the types of organizations and industries that hire alumni.
Participating representatives of Russian and Western companies and
organizations will have an opportunity to provide information about
their companies and to solicit resumes from alumni.

In order to participate in the Career Forum & Job Fair, prospective
participants (alumni and companies) must pre-register.

For further information refer to the following website or contact the
IREX/Moscow office directly at careerirex.ru.

**Registration forms, resumes, and financial assistance applications
can now be submitted electronically at
http://www.irex.ru/acad/forum.htm. or to the following
address/fax/e-mail: Muskie/FSA Career Forum Fax at (095) 203-5966 c/o
Olga Levadnaya, IREX/Moscow E-mail <careerirex.ru> Ul. Volkhonka 14,
Bldg. 5, 5th floor Moscow, Russia 119842