Morning, chums!

Yes, this (knowledge that the HER exists) is an issue as well. I’ve seen local publications turn up here with major gaffes in them that just get perpetuated: one of my favourite ones was from a parish that shall remain nameless, where the Wansdyke was described as ‘where they rolled the stones along to make Stonehenge’. There must have been a TARDIS involved.

The trouble is that this kind of drivel gains more acceptance because it is published, to misinform further generations. I do my best (as does Dan the HER man) to publicise the fact that this (HER) information exists, it is free at the point of use for non-contractors, and that it is easy to access.

Because community archaeology (real community archaeology, not what Andrew Selkirk thinks it is, bless him!) exists here, I think most local groups here are aware of the HER, but some still slip between the floorboards…

Vince

Hi all,

We’re lucky that some of our local societies are aware of the HER, but it does seem to be that case generally that the majority aren’t. There is an element (and I’m not being age-ist here), that in many cases the membership of local societies if often mainly of retired enthusiasts who consider museums or record offices to be the sole repositories of information. I’m a little disappointed that CA didn’t mention HERs, but also that EH aren’t doing more to promote us? This problem is increased when the curatorial archaeologists are not aware of some of the excellent work being carried out by local groups because they don’t know to tell us.

The same problem exists to some extent in the academic sector – e.g. the EngLaID project, where HERs were consulted almost as an afterthought? Like Ingrid, we’re hoping to promote our HER as a source of information (and advice!) to local groups, especially through some proposed parish heritage plans, but it doesn’t help when the archaeological press (which has a high readership amongst local societies) fails to promote a system that has been up and running for sometime now…

Cheers!

Alex

One would hope that Barney Sloane would be the person to swiftly dispel this myth that reports are inaccessible? Surely one of our EH colleagues can make sure that this is the case??

Tim

The August 2014 issue of Current Archaeology has an article by editor-in-chief Andrew Selkirk about local societies and ‘grey literature’ reports for developer-funded archaeological work. The article mentions OASIS and the Roman Grey Literature Project as sources of reports but doesn’t mention HERs.  The article is advertising a meeting of the Council for Independent Archaeologists in September to discuss “The Grey Literature Problem”: http://www.independents.org.uk/ (one of the speakers is from English Heritage).

I’ve sent a letter to Current Archaeology pointing out that local societies can contact their local HER to access grey literature.  However it does perhaps highlight how hidden HERs are, when one of the popular archaeological magazines apparently doesn’t know that we exist, and presumably doesn’t know about Heritage Gateway either.  I know this is the case with our local societies in Southampton, which I’m hoping to change with the Home Front Legacy project.  Is this a general problem?    

Ingrid

Ingrid Peckham
Historic Environment Record Officer 
Southampton City Council
023 8083 2850
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