Digital Humanities Abstracts

“Building Belphegor: A Multilingual Electronic Journal using TEI”
Vivien Hannon Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre/Academic Computing Services Vivien.Hannon@Dal.CA Bruno Roy Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre/Academic Computing Services Bruno.Roy@Dal.CA Vittorio Frigerio Dalhousie University French Department Vittorio.Frigerio@Dal.CA John Barnstead Dalhousie University Department of Russian Studies John.Barnstead@Dal.CA Oriel MacLennan Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre/Killam Library Oriel.MacLennan@Dal.CA

Belphegor is the first e-journal to be published at the Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre, and has presented challenges because of its multilingual character. Readers may choose to view the journal in one of six languages: French, English, German, Portuguese, Spanish or Italian. Papers published in the journal may be in any one of the languages; abstracts are offered in more than one language. All information about the journal itself, the authors, the editorial committee, etc. is offered in all six languages. Many images presented on the pages have different versions for each of the languages. While many e-journals are originally created in HTML, it was decided in this case to create a single XML-compliant TEI-encoded file for each issue, containing all the text required for the HTML pages, using entity definitions for images. A "mock-up" partial set of pages was created in HTML and used as a sort of design sketch to help with the creation of Belphegor's TEI template. This template was created keeping in mind that we will be working on other journals in the future; it can be easily customized. Using a custom Perl script, a TEI file created using the template is then converted to a set of HTML files. Another Perl script is used to translate the TEI file to PDF, creating a version of the journal issue which is optimised for printing. Using different scripted translators, the TEI document could later be converted to other formats at the request of the editors - for example, e-book, LaTeX or Postscript. The journal's appearance can easily be modified by adjusting the translator script and creating new graphics if needed. The search page is designed to take advantage of the TEI markup and allow readers to search using various criteria; for example, authors' names, titles of works, dates and places. As a bonus, we will demonstrate to interested parties an example of the use of digital media in humanities research in the Kuzmin Collection, which presents materials associated with the Russian poet, novelist, dramatist, and composer Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936), a key figure in the development of the twentieth century Russian avant-garde. Research into neglected aspects of Kuzmin's musical compositions and settings of his poetry by figures of the "repressed Russian avant-garde" has been facilitated by use of computer-assisted music transcription. The Electronic Text Centre allows the presentation of this research to a widely-scattered scholarly audience at minimal expense, in a much more useful form than would be possible using traditional forms of publication. By giving students "hands-on" experience in ongoing scholarly research and translation, and by providing the means to examine the interrelationships of poetry, music, and the visual arts, the Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre makes a growing contribution to the life of the University and its mission to serve the community.