Challenges in the Design of Online Full-Text Databases: Creating Rich Text Encoding

Carole E. Mah
Women Writers Project
Brown University
PMB 68
306 Thayer St.
Providence, RI 02906-1572
Carole_Mah@brown.edu

Introduction: Encoding System Design in the Context of User-Centered Design

Writing about the Cypress project at the University of California at Berkeley, Nancy Van House et al. state that "digital libraries can be described and evaluated on three key components: contents, functionality, and interface"[1]. The writers lament the fact that of these three, contents and functionality are not commonly enough evaluated. For a digital resource whose function depends to a high degree on the encoding of its contents, we can extend these observations and suggest that user-centered design and evaluation of functionality must begin with the design of the encoding system itself. This is increasingly true as the encoding system becomes more complex. For a project like the Brown University Women Writers Project (WWP), whose research focuses on highly detailed encoding, our central problems are how to provide encoding which will support anticipated user needs; how to find a delivery system which can use this encoding; and how to design an interface which makes this encoding useful to the user. Since the topic of user interface design deserves its own paper, and since there are already many studies of that subject[2], this paper focuses on WWP encoding decisions rather than on the choice and design of the delivery system[3].

Moreover, the aforementioned studies are generalized, rather than focused on humanities textbase design. Studies that do focus on humanities projects are scarce, and the ones that do exist[4] do not specifically address the issue of how the kind of markup offered in the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines might best be utilized in encoding and delivery. We are interested in exploring what components(s) of TEI markup are actually necessary to fulfill scholarly user needs. For this reason (and because it is not clear how much one could generalize from others' studies) the WWP has performed our own assessment of users' needs via beta-testing (prior to the textbase release date of August 1999) and via a Mellon Foundation-funded user survey.

Defining "Rich" Text Encoding

Within the context of the TEI, the definition of "rich" encoding occurs on a spectrum. The "lightest" involves transcribing from a modern standard edition of a work using minimal phrase-level elements, ignoring original pagination, lineation, and typography. The other extreme is to transcribe several different versions of a work, marking them up so as to enable collation/comparison, providing detailed analysis of handwritten additions/deletions, and providing markup to enable linguistic and/or metrical analysis. The WWP falls in the middle of these two extremes. We provide robust phrase-level markup, preserve original errors, typography, abbreviations, spelling, lineation, pagination, forme work information, and basic information about handwritten additions/deletions. We also record a few aspects of the original rendition (e.g., case, slant, and alignment, but not kerning, leading, or type size).

Arguments For and Against Rich TEI Markup

One of the primary arguments against rich text encoding is that it exceeds actual scholarly requirements, providing unnecessary detail at prohibitive cost. Part of the problem with this argument is that scholarly requirements vary considerably from discipline to discipline; historians may chiefly need simple search and retrieval tools, while literary scholars may need features which support more detailed analysis of the text. In addition, a diversity of potential uses may also require more detailed encoding to accommodate different needs. Thus, while scholars engaged in historical or literary research value a transcription which reproduces the original lineation, pagination and spelling, teachers may need a version with some degree of spelling modernization or regularized typography for their students. The WWP's user survey (http://www.wwp.brown.edu/project/rwo/Evaluation.html) suggests strongly that users expect the textbase to function both for research and for teaching, and that they do require a transcription which reproduces the basic material details of the text as well as its structure and content.

Justifying the Cost of Rich Text Encoding

Very few projects provide rich, detailed markup of primary source texts because the expense of this level of markup is regarded as an obstacle to getting important materials online, and greater priority is given to the quantity of material encoded than to the detail of the encoding. While the WWP also feels these pressures, we feel that the actual added cost and effort are still matters for research. Our working hypothesis is that rich markup is necessary in order to provide a research environment within which users feel empowered and at home. Rather than thinking of rich text markup as adding levels of arcane complexity which will never be used, we feel that its level of detail anticipates the users' basic expectations about how text should be represented and manipulated. Therefore, from our point of view the question is not how to justify the costs associated with rich text encoding but rather (given that rich text encoding is a necessity) what might be the best way to minimize those costs. These methods of cost minimization will be addressed at length in the final version of this paper.

Conclusions

While not decisive, our user survey and beta-testing results so far confirm our hypothesis that rich text markup is essential for providing a textbase which is a genuinely useful teaching and research tool. Moreover, these results indicate the direction future testing should take. Future evaluation and design iterations must focus even more on user-centered testing and evaluation. In particular, as Seaman suggests[4], pro-actively educating users will help greatly in solving many still-unanswered questions.

Notes

  1. Van House, Nancy A. and Mark H. Butler, Virginia Ogle, and Lisa Schiff. "User-Centered Iterative Design for Digital Libraries: The Cypress Experience", D-Lib Magazine, February 1996. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february96/02vanhouse.html>

  2. Baecker, Ronald M.. Readings in human-computer interaction: toward the year 2000. (San Francisco, Calif.: M. Kaufmann Pub., 1995.)

    Nielson, Jakob. "Jakob Nielson's Website (Usable Information Technology)". <http://www.useit.com/>

  3. Addressing these issues deserves a separate forum. To this end, we are conducting a demo/poster presentation on the technical details of our online delivery system.

  4. In addition to Van House (cited above) see for example:

    Arms, Caroline R. "Historical Collections for the National Digital Library: Lessons and Challenges at the Library of Congress", D-Lib Magazine, May 1996. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may96/05c-arms.html>

    Seaman, David. "The User Community as Responsibility and Resource", D-Lib Magazine, July/August 1997. (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july97/07seaman.html)

    Shaw, Elizabeth J. and Sarr Blumson "Making of America -- Online Searching and Page Presentation at the University of Michigan", D-Lib Magazine, July 1998. <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july98/07hunter.html>