Semantic Cartography: Using RDF/OWL to Build Adaptable Tools for Text Exploration

Texts encoded using the Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines (TEI) are ideally suited to close examination using a variety of digital methodologies and tools. However, because the TEI is a broad set of guidelines rather than a single schema, and because encoding practices and standards vary widely between collections, programmatic interchange among projects can be difficult. Software that operates effectively across TEI collections requires a mechanism for normalizing data a mechanism that, ideally, preserves the essence of the source encoding. Brown University’s Center for Digital Scholarship will address this issue as one part of a project, funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant, to develop tools for analyzing TEI-encoded texts using the SEASR environment (National Center for Supercomputing Applications).