Preserving a LISTSERV Archive in TEI: The Case of TEI-L

“Can the archives of an email list be stored in TEI?” This paper addresses this question with special attention to the challenges of data retrieval from the TEI-L LISTSERV and the mapping of email contents and metadata to XML and TEI. Our experiments with TEI data modeling involve adapting encoding models for correspondence and personography as well as from the new “Computer Mediated Communication” chapter of the TEI Guidelines. We experimented with very different approaches to retrieving and mapping LISTSERV data, and we faced challenges that reflect changing technologies in character encoding and email transmission, as well as conceptual difficulties in reliably tracing individual contributions over years and decades. Ultimately we believe that yes, it is possible (although difficult) to store the archives of an email list in TEI, that there are some problems with establishing a satisfactory encoding, and the methods one chooses will probably depend on the scope of a LISTSERV archival project.