---------- Forwarded message ---------
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 09:54:41 -1000 (HST)
From: Tom Dye <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Democratising Archaeology

This thread is extremely interesting and complex.  Why build an on-line
archive?  There are few traditional rewards for the exceptional effort
that it takes and there can be no assurance that users of any stripe will
be able to make effective use of it once it is on-line.  I believe it is
next to impossible to organize an archive so that everyone will find it
useful.  User's goals are potentially too diverse to serve as effective
design guides.

I do think that papers that use data in an archive are indispensable
guides for archive users and that it is beneficial to have these linked in
at appropriate points.  We'd all benefit from re-establishing the
connection between reports of analytic results and the data on which they
are based.  Archives are the place to make this happen.  I also think that
analytic (preferably open-source) software is a useful part of the mix and 
that its availability at an archive can be a real gift to the user,
especially if data are archived in standard formats and not locked in
proprietary file structures. In my view, when these conditions are met,
the new archive user can potentially use a paper as a conceptual road map
and software as an exploratory vehicle, either to cover exposed terrain or
to forge ahead into the thicket.  Then an archive is alive.

Tom


On Thu, 18 Nov 1999 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> As manager of a Heritage Information Records section I am keen to see the   
> widest possible access to our collections (archaeological sites, historic   
> buildings, parks and gardens). I am currently preparing a bid to the   
> Heritage Lottery Fund for an access project and would like to adopt the   
> kind of approach Nick wrote about. The project will need to consider all   
> types of users from professional archaeologists and academics through the   
> interested amateur to the general public. We are exploring using a system   
> built for the County Record Office, and I would like to implement this as   
> a hierarchy of levels that users could either 'drill' down through or   
> enter at the appropriate level for their particular interest. To provide   
> an interpretative 'layer' for many users with little or no knowledge of   
> archaeology and historic buildings it will be important to provide   
> background information, from 'What is Archaeology' to 'What is a Roman   
> villa' or 'What was life like in a medieval castle'. The themes should be   
> interlinked - e.g. 'Roman Britain' to 'Roman villas'. Moreover, the user   
> should be able to jump from particular themes e.g. 'Medieval Castles' to   
> the individual records of medieval castles from Essex. The ideal   
> situation would be for the user to be able to ultimately to jump to the   
> detailed records held in our own database although that might be too   
> ambitious at this stage.
> 
> Paul Gilman
> Essex County Council
> 
> Nick Eiteljorg wrote:
> "I certainly hope it's an accurate analysis. That's one of my real   
> motivations for trying to build an archive. There are many ways to read   
> democratization, though. It can mean making very detailed information   
> available to everyone, but it can also mean making that information   
> available to a much wider circle of scholars - including those with poor   
> research libraries, those looking for comparanda in sub-specialties they   
> have no experience with, and so on. I am eager to see both kinds of   
> democratization, but I am optimistic enough that I also see higher-level   
> abstraction pointing down the chain of abstraction to the details, one   
> step at a time, so that a naive student can follow the chain of argument   
> DOWN from the level of abstraction he/she encounters to the most detailed   
> data supporting that abstraction. That kind of democratization is very   
> appealing to me, in part because I would like it in fields I know just   
> enough about to be dangerous - and not enough to know whether the   
> abstractions are as insupportable as I may think. That kind of   
> democratization does not imply dumping masses of data on unsuspecting Web   
> crawlers but instead suggests that we may be better able to connect   
> information and knowledge.
> I confess, though, that making it possible to work one's way down the   
> chain of abstraction will be very difficult indeed. But we can start the   
> process with the archives."
> 
> 

Thomas S. Dye, Ph.D.                       http://www.lava.net/~tdye
Home: 813 16th Avenue, Honolulu, Hawaii 96816.  Voice (808) 734-2087.
Work: International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc., 2081 Young St.,
      Honolulu, Hawaii 96826. Voice (808) 946-2548; Fax 943-0716.



Forwarded to intarch-interest by:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
Judith Winters
Editor, Internet Archaeology  http://intarch.ac.uk

Department of Archaeology,
King's Manor,
University of York
YO1 7EP,  UK 
Tel: +44 1904 433955
Fax: +44 1904 433939








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