MoEML

Last week I wrote about what I thought was a fantastical idea of text encoding being represented as a physical environment that could experienced in the same way as, for example, connecting a stationary bicycle to Google Maps and cycling virtually cycling across Canada. The idea was that each text could be represented by a physical environment be experienced, for example, by biking through it. Texts are experiential, unique spaces that we visit when we read them.

In searching for a “TEI project in the wild” this week where the XML was made available and where process and nature of their project was described, I stumbled upon the Map of Early Modern London project, dubbed MoEML. This interactive map is based on the Civitus Londoninium, popularly known as the Agas Map, a map printed from woodblocks in 1561. It is a “bird’s eye view” of the City of London as it was in 1561—the streets, buildings, and London’s environs. It is ultimately a literary and physical exploration of Shakespeare’s London. The project is extremely collaborative in nature and actively seeks input and comment from outside institutions and disciplines. It in an ongoing TEI project led by scholars at the University of Victoria, BC.

The team describes the MoEML as a project that “provides a virtual space for exploring the meaning and representation of cultural space in the London of Shakespeare and his contemporaries […] and allows us to visualize literary and historical data, a material object with its own historical and aesthetic interest, and a text in its own right.” This last line is what links to my prior blog entry – the map of a city can be read as a text; I assume the opposite is possible?

The XML and versions of the XML are freely available and searchable to any user. The documentation available is presented in such as way as to invite others to learn how to encode. Encoding instructions are provided, including OS specific information, guidelines for using oXygen, etc. From what I observed, XML is available for every single element published on their website. 

I’ve included an example of one of the poems they manually transcribed, as well as the accompanying XML.

      Note that this is only a portion of the XML file.

This is a fascinating project. Of course after I prepared my blog entry I realised one of our “blogmates” also cited this project as an example of “TEI in the wild”. I apologize for the duplication of material.

As a side bar, I looked for TEI projects where XML code was made available for transcripts of Hildegarde von Bingen’s work and discovered the MEI – the Music Encoding Initiative. Down the rabbit hole…  

The MoEML project can be found here:

https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/map.htm