We are developing and evaluating portable and transparent methods and tools based on SGML/XML for managing complex document collections. As a test case we are examining patterns of co-operation and disagreement between people as expressed in legal documents of the 18th century from southern Corsica concerning rights over property. Our approach aims to relate coding, modelling, interpretation and catalogue entries with the source material, resulting in a layered representation which includes references to as much of the research context as possible.

We are developing the methods and tools to address problems we have experienced in the past with complex documents sets, including archival document-based research, ethnographic fieldnotes, and the relationship between ethnological models and ethnographic data. We chose SGML/XML as a representational tool because it is a) formally defined - the researcher can be held accountable for what is and is not in the representation, b) it is flexible enough to deal with a wide range of mixed material, approaches, and analytic methods, and c) it is an international standard and a range of existing tools exist to work with material in this format. Indeed, by this time next year it is likely that all word processors will be able to edit and display material encoded in XML, and there will be support for XML on most consumer computers. Although we are developing a range of specialised software, all of our development is based around widely available libraries and software, using a programming language, Java, which in principle means the software can be used on any platform - the members of the research team are collectively using Solaris Unix, Linux, MacOS, MacOS X Server and Windows NT.