About the TEI Header

The TEI Header captures administrative, technical and bibliographic metadata for the electronic file. Every valid TEI document must include a header, but headers can also stand alone, and are sometimes used to share bibliographic metadata between institutions (in much the same manner as MODS or MARC records), or to capture additional metadata for part of a larger TEI.2 document (see the Indiana Magazine of History Project for an example). The header element (<teiHeader>) is the first child element of the root element. In the case of a TEI-encoded text file, the root element is <TEI.2>; in the case of an independent header document, the root element is <ihs> (independent header set).

Other Resources

General information and tutorials

• See E-Text Readings and Resources

Mappings to other metadata standards

• UVA EText Center, TEI2MARC Mapping

DLP/ETDC TEI Header Best Practices

Each of the four main elements links to the appropriate section of the TEI Guidelines, which gives a narrative description of the purpose and use of the element and its sub-elements. The info boxes give a general overview and/or in-house best practices. For a more complete definition of an element, or to find out which child elements are required, look at the guidelines.

Also see: TEI Element Reference

• <teiHeader>
  • <fileDesc> required

    fileDesc The fileDesc contains the 'meat' of the header, including all bibliographic information. Except for the info in sourceDesc, all of the elements in fileDesc pertain to the electronic file, not the original source item.

    • <titleStmt> required
      • <title> required

        title If you want to use the title of the original source item as the title of the electronic file, the guidelines recommend distinguishing it from the original in some way, e.g. "Indiana Authors and Their Books: electronic edition."

      • Statements of responsibility optional

        respStmt Usually the person and/or company who did the encoding. Use resp to record the role.

    • <editionStmt> optional

      editionStmt From the guidelines re editions of electronic texts: "Synonymous terms used in these Guidelines are 'version,' 'level,' and 'release'. The words 'revision' and 'update', by contrast, are used for minor changes to a file which do not amount to a new edition."

      • <edition> required
      • Statements of responsibility optional
    • <extent> optional

      extent This element is meant to capture the size of the electronic file. We don't typically use it, since we have other ways to record this information.

    • <publicationStmt> required
      • Prose description, or at least one of
      • <publisher>

        publisher Normally "Digital Library Program, Indiana University". There are two alternative elements: <distributor> and <authority>.

      • <pubPlace>

        pubPlace Normally "Bloomington, IN"

      • <address>

        address Normally "<addrLine>1320 E. 10th St.</addrLine> <addrLine>Bloomington, IN 47405</addrLine>"

      • <idno>

        idno Normally a VAA number or other local identifier

      • <availability>

        availability Consists of a terms of use statement. Will need to be verified and potentially modified for each project, but the boilerplate is "<p>Indiana University provides the information contained on this web site for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright holder is strictly prohibited.</p>" Can also include a copyright statement - we are still determining best practices for those.

      • <date>

        date Publication date of the electronic text.

    • <seriesStmt> optional

      seriesStmt We normally include a <title> element and others as appropriate.

      • Prose description, or at least one of
      • <title>
      • <idno>
      • <respStmt>
      • <resp>
      • <name>
    • <notesStmt> optional

      notesStmt The guidelines say that the notesStmt should contain "descriptive information of the kind treated as `general notes' in traditional bibliographic descriptions." It's also a good place to put random bits of bibliographic metadata that won't fit elsewhere, like the title and author of a book being reviewed (IMH).

      • Contains one or more <note> elements
      • (The <notesStmt> cannot be repeated, but the <note> elements may be nested. See the Indiana Magazine of History Project for an example.)
    • <sourceDesc> required

      sourceDesc The sourceDesc contains bibliographic information for the item being digitized. The content and structure will depend on the type of item. biblStruct is useful for items with a hierarchical component, like serials and other types of series. To figure out which is most appropriate and which child elements to use with it, see Bibliographic Citations and References in the guidelines. When the item in question is already in electronic form, or consists of an audio file, see sections 5.2.8 and 5.2.9 in the guidelines.

      • Prose description, or one of
      • <bibl>
      • <biblStruct>
      • <biblFull>
      • <listBibl>
  • <encodingDesc> optional

    encodingDesc Use the editorialDecl to declare the encoding level, the classDecl to declare any controlled vocabularies used in the file (e.g. LCSH), and other elements as applicable.

    • Prose description, or one or more of
    • <projectDesc>

      projectDesc Example: "<p>This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and has been encoded and edited using the recommendations for Level 3 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file.</p>" The TEI in Libraries Guidelines

    • <samplingDecl>
    • <editorialDecl>
      • <correction>

        correction This element is used to record any editorial changes made during encoding. For example, when page numbers have been printed incorrectly in the source document, and are corrected in the TEI, it should be noted here. This element may be displayed for the user in the 'Item Description' section in METS Navigator or in the XTF delivery software.

    • <tagsDecl>
    • <refsDecl>
    • <classDecl>

      classDecl Example: "<taxonomy id="lcsh"> <bibl> <title>Library of Congress</title> </bibl> </taxonomy>"

    • <fsdDecl>
    • <metDecl>
    • <variantEncoding>
  • <profileDesc> optional

    profileDesc According to the guidlines, the profileDesc "provides a detailed description of non-bibliographic aspects of a text, specifically the languages and sublanguages used, the situation in which it was produced, the participants and their setting." We generally use langUsage to declare languages encoded in the text, and textClass to assign keywords (such as LCSH) to a text.

    • One or more of
    • <creation>
    • <langUsage>

      langUsage Example: "<language>English</language>"

    • <textClass>

      textClass Example: "<keywords scheme="lcsh"> <list> <item>American literature–Indiana–Bio-bibliography</item> <item>Indiana–Bio-bibliography</item> </list> </keywords>" (LCSH must be declared in classDecl.)

    • <textDesc>, <particDesc>, <settingDesc>, <handList>

      misc. These elements may appear in profileDesc when additional tag sets are enabled.

  • <revisionDesc> optional

    revisionDesc A change log of modifications and revisions made to the TEI file. Example: "<change> <date>September 12, 2003</date> <respStmt> <name>Ruth Barrett</name> <resp>Encoder</resp> </respStmt> <item>Encoded page breaks.</item> </change>"

    • Either a <list>, or one or more of
    • <change>
      • <date>
      • <respStmt>
      • <item>