A TEI customization for the description of paper and watermarks Ermenegilda Rachel Mueller , University of Iceland, ermenegilda.muller@gmail.com TEI Annual Conference and Members' Meeting, Graz, September 16-20, 2019. Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz Austria Zentrum für Informationsmodellierung - Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz Austria GAMS - Geisteswissenschaftliches Asset Management System Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 2019 Graz o:tei2019.177

Born digital.

Papers tei2019

en paper watermarks customization document description support description

Summary TEI offers a large set of tools to describe material features of written documents. However, these tools are not yet sufficient to produce comprehensive, structured descriptions of paper, and do not reflect the standards of paper historians. The present contribution consists of a TEI-P5 customization for the description of paper and watermarks. This customization is designed to let users choose the level of detail they wish to achieve in such descriptions while maintaining standardized terminology, criteria for data recording, and structure.

Scope and purpose Being able to record standardized paper and watermark data in TEI would not only be useful to projects that focus on the study of paper. It would also be a significant asset for projects that use TEI to describe paper documents in general. Indeed, watermarks can be used to date manuscripts and printed books (see for instance Stevenson, 1967). Moreover, watermark motives are indicators of paper quality, and can thus be used to assess the financial investment represented by the production of a given manuscript or printed book (see for instance Busonero et al., 2001). Finally, they bear witness to the geographical origin of paper, and can thus inform where documents were made or the commercial routes through which the paper used to produce them was obtained (see for instance Churchill, 1935). Therefore, they are key to determining the historical, geographical and socio-economical contexts in which documents were produced. Including this information in TEI descriptions of primary sources would facilitate collaborations between specialists - for instance manuscript scholars, book historians and paper scholars - and thus benefit our knowledge of the origin and production context of paper manuscripts and early printed books. The present TEI customization is modeled on the international standard for the description of paper, watermarks and paper molds in relational databases, IPHN 2.1.1 (IPH, 2013). The purpose of IPHN is to standardize the recording of data concerning historical and modern papers, with or without watermarks, in order to ensure the compatibility of the different digital databases of papers and watermarks. It offers a tagset and a database structure for the registration of all the features of papers and watermarks that contribute to their identification, and a standardized terminology for watermarks motives. At the present stage, IPHN is the only existing standard for papers and watermarks registration in digital databases, and it is not yet widely applied. Most digital databases of watermarks use different digitizing methods, different criteria for the registration of data, and different terminology. For these reasons, their interoperability is limited, despite the efforts to have been made in this direction (see especially Bernstein Project, 2019). Adapting the IPHN standard to TEI-P5 significantly contributes in fixing this problem in three ways: - First of all, since TEI is used in a majority of digital catalogues covering paper documents, it allows a larger number of professionals - scholars of manuscripts and early printed texts, archivists, librarians etc. - to record paper and watermark data. - For the same reason, it makes paper and watermark data more accessible and allows scholars to better localize paper types and watermarks in collections of paper documents. - Finally, since TEI is designed to be highly stable and interoperable, using it for paper and watermarks data ensures that this data is recorded and encoded in a standardized manner.

Structure and content of the customization The present customization combines new elements based on the parameters listed in the IPHN standard with the official TEI modules msdescription, which is suitable for the physical description of all text-bearing objects, namesdates, which provides the necessary elements for the description of persons, places and organizations, and can therefore be used to enter information about paper makers and paper mills, and linking, in order to link the information together. It consists of two modules: - One module for the description of papers and watermarks themselves. - One module for the description of paper molds and the registration of information concerning paper mills and paper makers. The first custom module allows users to nest descriptions of one or more paper types and/or watermarks in the support and/or watermark elements of the msdescription module. These descriptions contain the following information: - The locus of a given paper type within the quire structure of the primary source that is described. - The physical features of this paper type (aspect, dimensions, state of conservation) and, when one can assess it, its composition and mode of production. - The number of chain lines (i.e. the vertical lines that are imprinted into the paper by the mold) and the distance between them. - The density of laid lines (i.e. the horizontal lines that are imprinted into the paper by the mold). - The position of the watermark, in relation to the paper sheet and to the chain lines. - The watermark motive, using the typology defined in IPHN 2.1.1. The second custom module allows users to enter descriptive information about a paper molds (i.e. chain lines, laid lines and watermark position and motive), geographical and historical information about the paper mill that used it, and prosopographic information about the paper maker. It combines the customization's new elements for paper and watermarks description and the elements provided in the namesdates module for the recording of historical and biographical information. The descriptions of papers and watermarks within primary sources and the descriptions of paper molds are meant to be registered in different files. Both custom modules include the official linking module so that users can link them together. This entails that files containing paper mold descriptions are stored in a separate database. However, since identifying paper molds can only be achieved by recording paper and watermarks data in a very large number of manuscripts or printed books, it cannot be done for small corpora or collections. Therefore, making paper mold description files is optional, and the customization can simply be used to include paper and watermarks data in the description of primary sources without necessarily linking them together.

Cost and time investment The customization is designed to give projects that wish to use it maximum freedom in terms of the time and money they wish to invest in the recording of paper and watermark data. For this purpose, it has the two following features: - The two custom modules are flexible enough to allow users to record paper and watermark data at the level of detail that they wish to achieve while preserving standardized terminology and structure. The only new elements that are required are those that represent features of paper types and watermarks that are both absolutely necessary to their identification and observable with minimal means (see below). This allows projects to decide how much time they wish to invest in the recording of paper and watermarks data, and to determine if they need to hire staff for this purpose. - The customization requires that users indicate the method used to collect paper and watermarks data, so that scholars who consult the description are aware of how much information could be collected with the method used, and how accurate this information can be. Very cheap and minimalistic methods can be used to collect such data with satisfying results. Nowadays, the most common of them is the use of a fibre optic light sheet to observe chain lines, laid lines and watermarks. Such a device can be found in the vast majority of conservation workshops of manuscripts and rare books collections, which means that using it does not entail additional material cost. The information collected with this method is, in many cases, already sufficient for the identification of watermarks. Much more precise methods currently exist - for instance, radiography - and projects that wish to record paper and watermarks data may want to invest in them in order to perform more detailed and accurate observations. This is, however, entirely up to them, and not required for the use of the present customization.

Outcomes The descriptions of paper types, watermarks, and paper molds created with the present customization can be used for various purposes, depending on how detailed they are and for how many items (paper manuscripts and/or printed books) they have been made. At a minimal level of detail and for a minimal number of described items, they allow users of digital catalogues to localize watermarks within collections and within collection items, know the basic features of the paper that contains them, and compare them with the items recorded in other paper and watermarks database, with the objective of identifying them. The more items are described, even at a minimal level of detail, the more likely it is to identify paper types and watermarks by mining the database, and to be able to produce paper molds descriptions. The more detailed the descriptions are, the more accurate the identification of paper types and watermarks will be. Finally, once paper types and watermarks have been identified, they can be used to date and contextualize the items in which they were found.

Bibliography Bernstein Project (2019). Bernstein. The Memory of Paper. [online] http://www.memoryofpaper.eu [Accessed September 1, 2019]. Busonero, P., Munafò, P. F., Storace, M. S., Ornato, E. (2001). La carta occidentale nel tardo Medioevo. 2 vol.. Rome: Ist. Centrale per la Patologia del Libro. Churchill, W.A. (1935). Watermarks in Paper in Holland, England, France, etc. in the XVII and XVIII Centuries and their Interconnection. Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger and co. International association of Paper Historians (2013). International Standard for the Registration of Papers With or Without Watermarks. version 2.1.1 [pdf] Available at http://www.paperhistory.org/Standards [Accessed September 1, 2019]. Stevenson, Allan H.. (1967). The Problem of the Missale Speciale. London: Bibliographical Society.