We are very happy to announce that the TAPAS service was formally launched on October 7, 2014 and is now available to the TEI community and the public. The launch brings us to the end of a productive three-year development process, generously funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Thanks to a number of early adopters, TAPAS is already home to several thriving TEI projects, with more being added every week. To get a sense of how TEI data currently functions within TAPAS, please browse through some of these early projects. If you’d like to try TAPAS with your own texts, you can get started by signing up for a free account, which will allow you to immediately begin adding material to the TAPAS Commons, an area for experimentation and public sharing of TEI data. To create your own projects and collections within TAPAS, you will need a TEI membership, which starts at $50 a year for an individual membership and $250 per year for the “Supporter” level institutional membership. If your institution is already a member of the TEI, you should contact your institution’s TEI membership administrator to link your account to your institution’s TEI membership. For more information on membership in TAPAS, please see our documentation about how to join.
Our next phase of development has already begun with a new NEH grant that supports the addition of an XML-aware repository to TAPAS. In the coming year we will also continue to improve the TAPAS publication mechanisms, develop programs of training and outreach, expand our documentation and user support, and help contributors to build their TEI projects.
We look forward to seeing TAPAS grow, and we invite your engagement, feedback, and contributions! If you have questions about how to use TAPAS or suggestions for future development, we’d be happy to hear from you. Please visit the site’s forums to contribute.