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"A CHRONOLOGY FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM" Announcing the first e-conference from FISHEN, starting 10th January 2000 Everyone is invited to join in the first e-conference from FISHEN. It's open 24 hours a day, you can join in from your armchair, and it's free!* Upwards of one million entries exist relating to the archaeological and architectural heritage in the databases maintained by the national heritage agencies, let alone the wealth of information held in the digital archives of research projects and sites and monuments records. One of the frequently asked questions addressed to these systems is 'how old is it?' or put another way 'what can you tell me about the period I am interested in?'. But what do we mean by 'Roman', 'Saxon', 'Late Bronze Age' 'Post Medieval' 'Tudor'?. How does the meaning of these terms vary across the country? How can we rely on the results of searches if we haven't defined what we mean? FISHEN was established in 1998 to provide common standards for the content and indexing of digital heritage data. One project we are working on will provide a standard set of terms, appropriately defined, covering the chronology of the United Kingdom from the earliest human habitation to the present day. Various standards already exist, but this conference will give everyone the chance to have their views heard, and to take part in the development of the new national standard. 'Registering' for the e-conference is simple. Just join the FISHEN mailbase list by sending the following text as the only message to [log in to unmask] exactly as it appears below. join fishen your full name stop for example... join fishen Jane Bloggs stop After confirming your membership, you will receive further details about the fishen discussion list. As well as joining in the discussion, you will also be able to get copies of existing lists and other discussion papers relating to this project or other work from FISHEN to be emailed to you. Or just come along and listen. The discussion will really get going on the 10th January, when a number of original papers will be emailed to you. However, you're more than welcome to arrive early. Other discussions will include standards for Maritime archaeology inventories, revision of the MIDAS data standard, metadata issues and more. Edmund Lee Coordinator FISHEN http://www.mda.org.uk/fishen *on the down side there isn't a bar and a disco - but you can only do so much by email! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%