Ongoing maintenance and customization of archival standards using ODD (EAC-CPF revision proposal)

Laurent Romary (1) , Charles Riondet (1)

1 ALMAnaCH - Automatic Language Modelling and ANAlysis & Computational Humanities

The EAC-CPF tag library is natively expressed using the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) guidelines and maintained collaboratively on GitHub. This solution has already proven to offer some flexibility. Starting from this, we propose to go one step further and ​ create a complete maintenance framework of EAC-CPF based on the technical means provided by​ ​ the​ ​ TEI​ ​ guidelines​. A​ ​ well-documented​ ​ framework The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is broadly recognized as the ​ de facto standard for the representation of a variety of textual content expressed in digital form, but the TEI can be used to represent a wider range of digital resources. For instance, the TEI XML schema and the associated guidelines are maintained with the TEI format, more precisely, with a subset called "One Document Does it all" (ODD) which, as the name indicates, is a description language that "includes the schema fragments, prose documentation, and reference documentation​ ​ [...]​ ​ in​ ​ a​ ​ single​ ​ document" ,​ ​ based​ ​ on​ ​ the​ ​ principles​ ​ of​ ​ literate​ ​ programming. 1 Literate programming is a programming and documentation methodology whose "central tenet is that documentation is more important than source code and should be the focus of a programmer's activity". With ODD, semantic and structural consistency is ensured as we 2 encode and document best practices in both machine and human-readable format. ODD was created at first to give TEI users a straightforward way to customize the TEI schema according​ ​ to​ ​ their​ ​ own​ ​ practices​ ​ and​ ​ document​ ​ this​ ​ customization. It is possible to describe a schema and the associated documentation of any XML format. In the context of the EHRI project (ehri-project.eu), ODD was used to encode completely the EAD standard, as well as the guidelines provided by the Library of Congress. The maintenance on a GitHub repository also offers great possibilities to collectively discuss potential​ ​ issues,​ ​ enhancements,​ ​ etc.

Domaines: Sciences de l'information et de la communication; Histoire; Traitement du texte et du document

Laurent Romary, Charles Riondet. Ongoing maintenance and customization of archival standards using ODD (EAC-CPF revision proposal). 2017. ⟨hal-01677185⟩