I am part of the group that will be encoding a bit of this book:
And more specifically, this part of the book:
As you can see there is lots of cool stuff on the page just based on the layout. However, I am particularly fascinated by the depth behind every name mentioned in a paragraph. Each of the names written down on these pages has an entire history to it. I think descriptively tagging these individuals and places, and according them a tag that allows the text to be searched or navigated by name would make for an powerful XML book. One could later count descriptive tags to count names and the distances of names from each other. Similar to the way journal impact factor is based in citation analysis, scholars could run metrics on XML tags.
At the same time, part of me gets pretty worried about descriptively tagging each name, precisely because each name has such a long history. I know that some times the challenges that excite our passions can also be our undoing.
I also want to make a tie-in with our readings on the Page this week. I really like that most of us came into the Encoding Challenge thinking we would transcribe a whole book or chapter, but now almost all of us are focused deeper, all the way down to the page. And we get to ask ourselves, should my book as XML have any page layout resemblance to the paper book? Or is rejecting the boundary, even the idea, of the page an essential question to wade through?
At the same time, part of me gets pretty worried about descriptively tagging each name, precisely because each name has such a long history. I know that some times the challenges that excite our passions can also be our undoing.
I also want to make a tie-in with our readings on the Page this week. I really like that most of us came into the Encoding Challenge thinking we would transcribe a whole book or chapter, but now almost all of us are focused deeper, all the way down to the page. And we get to ask ourselves, should my book as XML have any page layout resemblance to the paper book? Or is rejecting the boundary, even the idea, of the page an essential question to wade through?
Hi Caleb,
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have a great item to work with! Your question about The Page is something our group has been discussing too. Specifically, we were talking about whether to encode page numbers. When a book is in codex form then page numbers have a meaning and a use, but in digital format, what's the use of page numbers? And even paragraphs, for that matter, unless each paragraph is tagged descriptively with a mini-synopsis, or something? I'm beginning to really see that the beauty of XML (or maybe all encoding) is the freedom to design your own chunks of text based on your own ideas of what the text is. For a semi-Luddite like me, that's quite a leap! :)
Yes, I have noticed that since many ebooks are really one long page, essentially a scroll, that they do not have page numbers. My Kindle allows me to adjust the layout of the interface to a small degree, such that I can adjust the text size, line spacing, font, and margins. The combined effects of these adjustments changes what I see as a "page" while using the Kindle, so page numbers quickly become a nuisance.
ReplyDeleteI suppose we really have to wonder if we are encoding the book, the page, or simply the signs and symbols of the text? How does the material form of the page you are encoding and its page number change the meaning of the encoded text?
I agree Caleb, I recently bought the new Kindle Fire XD and it's still the same. I'm not sure if that is the Kindle you have as well. It's fairly useless. In lieu of pages, my setting shows me the percentage of the book I've completed. I thought I wouldn't like that as much, but it's growing on me. Although it's a little disappointing when I'm coming to the end of a book and I read the final paragraph and the it says I've only read 92% because it takes into consideration the authors notes and "special thanks to..." pages. Those pages I don't really consider part of the story are still part of the book. But I always have this moment where I feel cheated of 8% of my story.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I haven't seen many instances in the short number of TEI examples I've explored that actually tags page numbers from books. Anyone come across anything like this?