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Hello, I am happy to report that we are nearing the point where we can officially unveil the completely revamped Best Practices for TEI in Libraries [1]. The revised Best Practices, prompted by the release of P5, contain updated versions of the widely adopted encoding ‘levels’ – from fully automated conversion to content analysis and scholarly encoding. They also contain a substantially revised section on the TEI Header, designed to support interoperability between text collections and the use of complementary metadata schemas such as MARC and MODS. The TEI Libraries SIG has been actively working on this endeavor since 2008 and many of the delays can be attributed to making the Best Practices more robust. To that end, the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries are now captured in a series of ODD files that generate both the prose documentation for encoding levels 1-5 and the schemas for encoding levels 1-4 that conform to TEI P5. Before we can officially "release" the Best Practices, we need to undergo a round of systematic testing to make sure nothing was lost in translation from our original TEI wiki documentation to the ODDs. We have established a two-pronged testing approach: -- Review and compare the prose documentation with the original wiki documentation to make sure nothing is amiss. -- Test the RelaxNG and Schematron schemas against TEI P5 projects to see whether the expressed constraints match the prose documentation and whether they unduly constrain content that a project thinks conforms to a particular encoding level. We are soliciting volunteers to help with both endeavors. We especially welcome "fresh eyes" to help us with testing and we would especially like to see multiple people testing the same levels to make sure we receive comprehensive feedback. Our goal is to have testing complete by May 1, 2011. We have created a test script of sorts that provides guidance for the review of the prose documentation and testing of schemas: <http://tinyurl.com/65co9mu>. You may decide that you'd like to do both, review, for example, the level 3 documentation and also test the level 3 schemas, or you may decide to do one or the other. We are happy to receive any amount of input you are willing to provide. We are asking reviewers to sign up themselves (on the testing script page) under the sign up sections provided (one for prose review, the other for schema testing). We will collect your feedback in the TEI Wiki space. If you don't already have an account, it's super easy to create one (top right, "log in / create account") link. You'll see in the testing script links to templates for documenting your feedback. This is the first time we have ever organized a systematic testing protocol that we are opening up to the TEI world. I apologize if the script or the feedback mechanism seems cumbersome. Please feel free to send comments to the list if you have suggestions for improving the process. In the meantime, I hope everything is at least clearly explained and presented in such a way to entice you to participate! Please accept our gratitude in advance and once you complete testing, we will also provide virtual hugs. Thanks, Michelle Dalmau and Kevin Hawkins TEI Libraries SIG conveners Editors, Best Practices [1] http://www.tei-c.org/SIG/Libraries/teiinlibraries/ (see Appendix B for historical context). Please note that the "public" version available is not the most current version nor the "official" version, but this link is provided for those of you who would like to learn more about the Best Practices.