Dear Folks
It's entirely up to you what you decide to call them, and whether you think
some consistency will help or hinder the cause regionally / nationally. All
I ask is that you are clear about the points I was trying to make about how
our small piece of fairy cake relates to the rest of the universe. (Even
though C1.2, p33, is, on reflection, a little condensed).
SMR is fine for a traditionally archaeological record if you don't mind
being more than slightly antiquated / antiquarian. But expect to be
misunderstood by most non-archaeologists. LAR is quite a good update for
that type (I don't think title matters statutorily - it's a matter of
intent, but I'm not a lawyer) because it does give freedom for imperial
expansion of the meaning and coverage of the 'a' word - as EH and others
have been doing in the last year or so.
HER or similar is for a record which explicitly serves the management and
understanding of the whole historic environment, above and below ground,
either as a single integrated system or as something layered / linked from
which, nonetheless, whole historic environment retrieval is routinely
possible, doutblessly involving GIS.
LEIMS is more a generic. It can describe either a type of record,
individually archaeological, architectural, ecological etc (making the
limits of the specific case clear by using titles such as LAR or HER), or a
specific federal record, linked by GIS layers, that includes all of those
elements and comprises a tool for total local environmental management and
understanding. The latter, the truly whole-environmental LEIMS for an area,
probably needs a sensible collective local descriptive prefix such as the
Blankshire EIMS or the City of Blank EIMS.
It all depends how you, and your colleagues / masters, want to play it. But
whatever you do, don't call your record something you would like it to be,
but isn't, and hasn't a realistic hope of becoming. That can screw up the
future as well as the past.
May all your data capture be eventful !
David
Historic Environment Conservation
email [log in to unmask]
Telephone + (0)1234 781179
Facsimile +(0)1234 782645
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