An online database that uses TEI to encode texts is the Walt Whitman Archive. Created in 1995 by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price under the aegis of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the website claims to be the ultimate edition of the writings of Walt Whitman (d. 1892), including all published and manuscript works. The American poet is best known for his book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, but he also worked as a journalist, and the archive even houses his journalistic writings.
TEI is used by the website developers to encode all manner of text, both printed and handwritten, as well as editorial changes, such as strike-through corrections and inserted comments. For example, the website includes handwritten first drafts of poems such as "Song of the Universal," and the accuracy of the encoding can be checked by comparing the linked digital image of the exemplar. The archive allows users to view source code for any single text. While links to code are sometimes included on the text page itself, in most cases they are not, but a right click of the mouse will allow the user to view that code. For example, one of the poems in Leaves of Grass is "I Sing of the Body Electric," which does not appear to have a code link, but by right-clicking the mouse, the poem's code opens in a new tab.
Information about the archive's encoding standards is posted on the website. A further link leads to a detailed exposition of their TEI encoding guidelines, which includes sections of code as examples for achieving particular results.
Best, Laura
1) Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (Boston, 1849).
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