Dear all,
I've been sitting back for the last couple of days just reading and
thinking about all you contributions and thoughts on the IFA standards,
and more specifically what sort of recommendations Ed and I can make to
them on matters pertaining to digital data. I now have a head full of
thoughts.
I wanted to pick up on a number of the submissions, prefacing this with
a pointer to the 2nd Edition of the Guide to Good Practice for
Excavation and Fieldwork. This is substantially revised from the first
edition and is recommended reading ... at least for those of us with
trouble sleeping :-)
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/goodguides/excavation/
So, here are my thoughts on the following:
*What (or who) the standards are actually for (cf Neil)
*ALGAO, ARIA and the IFA - how do the standards interact (cf Julia)
*All projects can produce archives (cf John)
*Pdf problems - but perhaps not an issue for IFA (various contributors)
*Metadata - specifically preservation metadata (documentation) (Ed)
*What (or who) the standards are actually for ...
I think Neil makes an important point when he says that we should
remember that the standards are for people, not for the data (or even
worse for their own sake). The standard should thus be flexible enough
to be deliverable in a variety of circumstances, and provide pointers to
more detailed advice in circumstances where the practitioner is
unfamiliar with the technicalities. The former is consistent with the
IFA's stated aim for their standards documents, the latter is perhaps
less explicit in the current documents than it could be. So, perhaps
what we need more than anything are a series of direct references to
MIDAS, Inscription and the G2GPs in the standards. As I see it, we can
do this two ways - as a reference or appendix tucked away at the back,
or integral to the text. The former is easy, but could be overlooked,
the latter is more work for Ed and I, and could become repetitive ...
*ALGAO, ARIA and the IFA - how do the standards interact
I don't doubt that what we need are a couple of neatly worded clauses
for the use of curators to include in their briefs. A number of
initiatives are already heading down that road, such as the OASIS
project which will provide a consistent and user-friendly form for
practitioners to submit data to SMR's, NMR's and others (being done
with ARIA/ALGAO/the NMRs/AIP and ADS). The sorts of data produced by
the OASIS will also provide the sort of "archive" I think we need for
projects where nothing actually happened - ie recording where work was
undertaken and where nothing turned up. However, there is purpose to
including data standards in the IFA codes as well, because it seems to
me that these (to a greater or lesser extent) define the ground rules of
good practices for the profession. To that extent, including data
standards in the IFA code would raise the profile of the issues and
should strengthen the arm of curators who - like John - insist on
digital submissions either to the SMR.
*All projects can produce archives
Yes, I think all projects should produce digital archives, even if that
really only represents one single record to say "we tried but there was
nothing there". There presumably must have been good reasons for asking
such work to go ahead, so even the short record can be instructive at
some point in the future.
*File formats - problems with pdfs
There are clearly problems with PDFs and there are reasons why other
formats, such as xml, sgml or html would be preferable for long term
storage. Is this an issue for inclusion in the IFA standards though? I
suspect that this is "beneath the surface": that contractors should be
encouraged to seek out the most up to date advice, with caveats for on
local need, technical facilities and so on.
*Metadata - specifically preservation metadata (documentation)
Ed is spot on about preservation documentation. There's no question in
my mind that documentation is the key to long term preservation: we can
muck about with file formats and undertake mass migrations and the like
- but if there's no supporting documentation then we're stuck. What do
I mean by documentation? Well, expansion codes for encoded data is
important, a key to putting the data back together, a note on the rights
management so that I know that I can copy it or lend it out, a note on
how file "x" relates to file "y" and so on.
Any thoughts, criticisms, additions or questions welcome!
All best wishes,
William
--
William Kilbride
User Services Manager
Archaeology Data Service
Dept of Archaeology t 0044 (0)1904 433954
University of York f 0044 (0)1904 433939
England YO1 7EP, UK m 0044 (0)7967 128632
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk e [log in to unmask]
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