Apologies for cross-posting. The LEADERS Project is based in the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at University College London (UCL), UK. With funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board, the project team are developing a generic toolset to bring together Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) to link online archival finding-aids to digitised transcripts and images of paper-based archival materials. At present, these two XML encoding systems are often used independently of each other and no generalised environment exists for linking them. Where links do occur in online archival finding-aids, they normally point to digitised images or transcriptions without provision for any analysis or manipulation of the source. The LEADERS team are working towards the provision of a generic and unified Internet-based interface for finding items within archival collections and for searching and manipulating electronic representations of those items. Therefore, the project's research interests are focused on: * Using the TEI to encode a range of Archival source materials * Linking the resulting XML documents to digitised images of the materials * Integrating the TEI-XML documents with EAD encoded finding aids * Providing tools to support the above processes including documentation and training for archivists and end users * Providing an example application for search/display of materials based on samples from the George Orwell Papers and the University College London Archive held at UCL * Undertaking user evaluation of the above work The successful conclusion of the project will enable archivists to present the richness of the materials in their custody in ways that have hitherto been unavailable, and this in turn will provide end-users with new means of accessing, analysing and exploiting archival material in their research. Further details about the project can be found via the newly launched web-site at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leaders-project Contact: Chris Turner (Project Manager): [log in to unmask] Anna Sexton (Project Assistant): [log in to unmask] **************************************************** Chris Turner Senior Research Fellow: Leaders Project School of Library, Archive and Information Studies University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT +44(0)20 7679 7205 [log in to unmask] http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leaders-project