Welcome to the THL Research Lab
This work site is devoted to scholars and others using THL’s publishing facilities and/or contributing to THL’s collaborative repositories. It provides a single site to learn about and access all of the online tools THL offers for content generation and editing. See the THL Toolbox – a Collab worksite but also published on THL Tools – for hundreds of pages introducing THL technical processes and tools. The current page, in contrast, focuses on the essential tools at the core of THL content creation for scholars, rather than for staff. If you have questions, please contact us at 
. If something is not covered here, just write us to ask!
Online Editing Facilities
We offer online tools to deal with map cataloging, events, subject maps, images, audio-video, places, and Tibetan terms. The following offer comprehensive online interfaces for adding new content and editing/cataloging extant data:
- Bibliography management & Editorial Manual: this is an old system used to manage online bibliography entries for books, journal articles, websites, and so forth. We also use it to keep track of digital work being done on Tibetan texts. We plan to replace it as soon as possible with a new bibliography module in the Media Management System described below.
- Cataloging Maps System & Editorial Manual: this is a powerful online spatial cataloging system. It is implemented, but not yet open for broad use. If you have an interest, contact us. You just need a login/password to access the editorial functions. Application not linked since not yet published, but editors can use it now - contact us.
- Historical Events and Timelines System: under active development.
- Knowledge Maps System & Editorial Manual: for building controlled vocabulary and hierarchical representation of phenomena or areas of knowledge.
- Media Management System, Image Editorial Manual & Audio-Video Editorial Manuals: for cataloging images, audio-video, and immersive objects. Application not linked since not yet published, but editors can use it now - contact us.
- Place Dictionary System & Editorial Manual: for describing geographical features – villages, mountains, monasteries.
- Tibetan Dictionaries System & Editorial Manual: for rich description of Tibetan terms.
The tools are generally easy to use as such, but the data is complex so it really requires reading the relevant manual and understanding the underlying intellectual model – which can take some time.
Documentation & Home Page Blurbs
In addition, documentation, and the text for the promotional blurbs found on home pages are all managed via Wikis maintained in other Collab online worksites such the current one. A full list of such worksites can be found at THL Collaborative Worksites.
Key Offline Methods
Tibetan Text Cataloging: Tibetan text cataloging is done through following a specific system of using tables in Microsoft Word which is definitely possible for a scholar to master, the results of which staff then convert to a markup system called XML for publication. See Tibetan Text Cataloging Documentation in the THL Toolbox for details. Transferring this system to an online one is a high priority in 2009.
Tibetan Text Processing: Tibetan text processing is done through following a specific system of using Microsoft Word which is definitely possible for a scholar to master, the results of which staff then convert to a markup system called XML for publication. See Tibetan Text Processing Documentation in the THL Toolbox for details.
Essay Processing: essay processing is done through following a specific system of using Microsoft Word which is definitely possible for a scholar to master, the results of which staff then convert to a markup system called XML for publication. See Essay Processing Documentation in the THL Toolbox for details.
Things Under Development
General Bibliographical System: our previous system provided online facilities, but it is rather cumbersome. We intend in 2009 to modify the Media Management System so that it can provide the ability to catalog texts, articles, web sites, and other resources.
Making Maps: we are very actively working on our mapping tools.
Rich Descriptions of Places: we have designed and will implement in 2009 the online capacity to create and edit rich descriptions of specific kinds of features, starting with monasteries, polities, and tourist destinations.