TAPAS

TAPAS is the TEI Archiving Publishing and Access Service for scholars and other creators of TEI data who need a place to publish their materials in different forms and ensure it remains accessible over time. TAPAS is also for anyone interested in reading and exploring TEI data, and communicating with those that share that interest. The goal of TAPAS is to provide TEI publishing and repository services at low cost to those who lack institutional resources: faculty, students, librarians, archivists, teachers, and anyone else with TEI data who wants to store, share, and publish it. TAPAS seeks to achieve these goals in a collaborative, open, and community-driven way using open-source tools.

The TAPAS project grew out of a TEI workshop held at Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 2008, in which a variety of scholars expressed frustration in their inability to present or share their encoded texts. Recognizing a common need, technologists and librarians at Wheaton College, Dickinson College, and Mount Holyoke College applied for and received a year-long grant from the IMLS to plan a TEI preservation, publication, and transformation service.

TAPAS has completed its initial planning phase, and has received a two-year National Leadership Grant from the IMLS to fund the implementation phase of the project. The project has also received an eighteen-month Digital Humanities Startup Grant from the NEH. Under these two grants, we are now developing the basic TAPAS repository architecture and user interface. Work on this phase of the project began in December 2011, and will continue into 2014.

We are now in the process of beta-testing the service in preparation for launch in early 2014, and we are actively seeking participation from potential users of this service (scholars, archivists, students, technologists, all manner of TEI aficionados!) for user testing and source data. Please contact us if you are interested in joining our pool of pilot projects.