There has been occasional discussion in the TEI community for years about what member institutions actually want out of the TEI Consortium, with particular concern that libraries have been the main funders of the TEI but are failing to renew their membership. (The TEI Consortium offers various levels of membership, expecting larger, wealthier institutions to join at a higher level. It has often been asserted that libraries are overrepresented among the higher-paying membership levels.) The evidence for the drop in support by libraries has been anecdotal, and speculation for why this has generally pointed to two things: that libraries are under pressure to cut their budgets, or that they no longer see value in the work of the TEI Consortium.

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