Encoding Financial Records for Historical Research

FAIN: HD-51224-11

Wheaton College (Norton, MA 02766-2322)
Kathryn M. Tomasek (Project Director: October 2010 to April 2014)

A meeting of historians of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America, archivists, and technical experts to discuss the development of a module for financial records for the Text Encoding Initiative to allow for additional mark-up and analysis of those records found in manuscript collections.

The standard guidelines for scholarly markup of digitized sources, those of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), do not provide adequate models for representing the semantic value of financial records. Nevertheless, various digitization projects have used TEI-compliant XML to encode manuscript collections that include financial documentation. And now a handful of projects have begun to use TEI as they turn attention to financial records per se, revealing a need for extended markup guidelines to increase the accessibility of these resources. We will organize a meeting of historians, archivists, and technologists as a first step toward developing standards for markup of transcribed text and the application of metadata that will allow for searching across collections of manuscript financial records. Ultimately, the process begun with this meeting will lead to an extension of current TEI guidelines to include a module on financial records.

Associated Products

Encoding Financial Records for Historical Research (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Encoding Financial Records for Historical Research
Author: Syd Bauman
Author: Kathryn Tomasek
Abstract: Poster presentation showing markup examples for a nineteenth-century daybook and ledger with proposed markup for a "transactionography"--a file of contextual information expressing the relationship between the two accounting books according to the principles of double-entry book-keeping.
Date: 07/01/2013
Conference Name: Digital Humanities 2013

Encoding Financial Records (Article)
Title: Encoding Financial Records
Author: Kathryn Tomasek
Abstract: Republication of the white paper from this award for a broader audience.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/2-2/encoding-financial-records-by-kathryn-tomasek/
Primary URL Description: A peer-reviewed online journal that publishes "scholarly work beyond the traditional research article."
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Digital Humanities
Publisher: Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

Encoding Historical Financial Records (Article)
Title: Encoding Historical Financial Records
Author: Syd Bauman
Author: Kathryn Tomasek
Abstract: This paper focuses on a thought experiment in which the authors propose an encoding system not unlike the contextual markup of prosopographies or gazetteers using TEI P5 that could be used to capture the particular financial semantics involved in HFRs. This possible system is expressed as a TEI "extension" customization, and is flexible enough to encode the subgenre of financial records called "double-entry accounts", a bookkeeping method for recording transfers of goods or services in exchange for currency or credit. Real-world markup examples are from the Wheaton College Digital History Project. A preliminary version of the ODD is currently available on Encoding Historical Financial Records (http://www.customization.encodinghfrs.org/).
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://jtei.revues.org/895
Primary URL Description: The journal of record for the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI).
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative
Publisher: revues.org

Encoding Historical Financial Records (Article)
Title: Encoding Historical Financial Records
Author: Syd Bauman
Author: Kathryn Tomasek
Abstract: Publication of the poster presented at DH2013.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/encoding-historical-financial-records/
Primary URL Description: A peer-reviewed online journal that publishes "scholarly work beyond the traditional research article."
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Digital Humanities
Publisher: Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

Encoding Historical Financial Records (Web Resource)
Title: Encoding Historical Financial Records
Author: Syd Bauman
Author: Kathryn Tomasek
Abstract: A website providing open access to products of the award, with the possibility of use for expanding or facilitating communication of the community of practice for markup of financial records.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.encodinghfrs.org/
Primary URL Description: A website providing open access to products of the award, with the possibility of use for expanding or facilitating communication of the community of practice for markup of financial records.

Transactionography Customization (Web Resource)
Title: Transactionography Customization
Author: Syd Bauman
Abstract: Downloadable customization files for producing a "transactionography," a file of contextual information that expresses the relationship between a daybook and a ledger in double-entry book-keeping.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.customization.encodinghfrs.org/
Primary URL Description: Downloadable customization files for producing a "transactionography," a file of contextual information that expresses the relationship between a daybook and a ledger in double-entry book-keeping.

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