while it may be too late for this to help Fiona with her current work, i 
voice a strong vote to archive databases of measurements on-line as 
tab-delimited text files (clearly referenced in the final report).  if the 
data are especially proprietary, then all the better motivation to publish 
on them before granting open access to the data.

here are the main reasons i feel so strongly about this:

1.  considering how gigantic some measurement databases can be, it seems 
pretty unwieldy to try to print hard copies of the data tables.

2.  most databases of measurements will also likely have a lengthy list of 
caveats that are important to be aware of.

3.  hard copies of gigantic databases would be extremely unpleasant to 
hand-enter for any meta-analyses (not to mention introducing the 
possibility of data-entry errors).

and

4.  tab-delimited text files can be opened by a wide range of software 
packages.  whatever format you chose for archiving the files, specify 
clearly what that format is.  


as an example of how i've archived my database of skeletal measurements on 
northern fur seals, take a look at:

http://pinniped.net/etnier/dissertation/diss%20data%20files/

the root directory has two text files ("disclaimer" and "data files info") 
that will hopefully maximize the utility of the data to anyone who wants to 
use them, while also minimizing the possibility of mis-use of the data.

cheers,

mike

Michael A. Etnier, PhD
Applied Osteology
Bellingham, WA  
www.appliedosteology.com

and

Department of Anthropology
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
http://faculty.washington.edu/metnier/

-------- Original Message --------
> From: "Umberto Albarella" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 10:56 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: SPAM-LOW:  Re: [ZOOARCH] metrical data in 'grey' literature 
reports
> 
> since Fiona's question is clearly of general interest could I please ask
> zooarchers to reply to the whole list rather than just to her? many 
thanks
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quoting fiona beglane <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
> > Hello Zooarchers,
> > I am trying to put together a research project at the moment looking 
at
> > metrical data from grey literature and am coming up with a problem.  
> > 
> > When I submit a report I include a tabulated form of the metrics which 
for
> > each individual bone lists out the results for that individual bone 
e.g. GL,
> > Bp etc.  so that all the data from the one bone is together.  Looking 
through
> > grey literature I am finding a lot of reports that only include summary 
data
> > e.g. for GL they would give the max, min, mean and std. dev.  This is
> > understandable in final publication where space is often at a premium, 
but I
> > was surprised that the 'full' grey literature reports were being 
submitted in
> > this way.  From the point of view of looking at changes over time and 
space
> > this makes the data much less useful to work with - and getting hold of 
the
> > original data might be difficult where the zooarchaeologist may have 
left the
> > country/profession.  
> > 
> > Does anyone have any thoughts? eg. do you or do you not include the 
full data
> > in the report? Any good reasons why this data should not be included? 
Any
> > thoughts on how this summary data might be used in a valid way?
> > 
> > Thank you all
> > Fiona
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >