Dear all,
This is in quick response to Neil Campling's contribution. I am interested
in and encouraged by his comments on PDF, but I have to say that I disagree
with him about the other points he makes.
On the first point, I think we have to be careful to define what we mean by
a digital archive, and what the implications of that definition are. An
archive, as I understand it, can contain any material that has been retained
for future reference. It could consist of an unsorted heap of papers, but I
think the term generallly implies some sort of index or catalogue to enable
people to retrieve material. A digital archive is just the same only
containing digital material. If you accept this definition, the archive
should serve the practitioner or user, not the other way round. I think a
digital archive should be prepared to take any digital records produced,
provided the basic technical capability is there - hence the discussion of
formats. It is helpful for practitioners to use standard recording forms but
I think people will in practice keep developing new versions to suit their
perceived needs, and that this is no bad thing as it allows for constant
innovation.
On the second point, I do not regard information derived from watching
briefs as 'low grade'. It is not true that "In 100 years time, all that any
archaeologist will need is a simple presence / absence tick box in most
cases." The watching brief should produce much more of potential future
value than a simple statement of 'presence / absence'. For example, it
provides a basic record of the activity watched, and of the conditions and
circumstances that applied to it. These could be of intrinsic interest in
the future, and will also inform and help to explain the results of the
archaeological observations. Was the weather bad or light levels low? What
type of machinery was in use? Apart from this, negative ('No archaeology')
results can be as useful as positive ones. Details of soil conditions,
hydrology, and so on may also be significant. I do not accept that watching
brief reports constitute "a set of information which contains limited
information or utility."
But why digitise this ?? Well, the information can be accessed and
disseminated much more easily in digital form. As I have said before, we
are now storing such reports within our SMR database as hyperlinked
documents, and if any researcher requires a copy it is easy to email one.
There have been plenty of complaints in the past about 'grey literature' and
its lack of general availability - this is an answer to that. The hard copy
documents may be more dimensionally stable and longer lasting than any
electronic format currently known, but it isn't a case of either / or - why
not require both. Or a paper copy can be printed off and stored. And just
as the paper copy backs up the digital one, the digital copy itself backs up
the paper one too.
Neil says "We should not be digitally capturing and electronically storing
information merely for the sake of doing it or because it can be done", but
this is just a version of an argument that goes back to the beginning of
SMRs or the RCAHMS Inventories, or the various journals of record, or the
first archives. The reason for capturing and storing information, digitally
or otherwise, is precisely because we think it is going to be useful in the
future.
If we are going to exclude watching brief reports from digital archives,
who decides on what should be included? Who sets the criteria of
usefulness, why, when, and how? No, this is a minefield. Let's keep out of
it.
John Wood
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John Wood
Inverness
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