A session entitled "Digital Data: Preservation and Re-Use" will be held at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Philadelphia in April, 2000. Papers for that session will be available through this site, in full or as outlines, early in March, 2000. Readers are encouraged to respond to the papers by sending email to neiteljo@brynmawr.edu. The responses will be posted here in HTML format as received.

Since the papers will be available here, the authors will summarize their papers at the session in preparation for full and active discussion. After the presentations, there will be questions from the presenters to one another, discussion of the issues raised by respondents to this Web site, and questions/comments from those attending the session.

Completed papers have been posted, and all will be posted as soon as possible.

Session Abstract:

Paper titles, authors, and abstracts:

• Internet Archaeology: Where next?

  Michael P Heyworth, Council for British Archaeology; Julian Richards, University of York, UK; & Judith Winters, Editor, Internet Archaeology, UK

  Internet Archaeology is now into its sixth issue and has over 12,000 registered readers. This paper will review our first three years of operation in order to evaluate the success of the project in establishing a fully electronic internet journal for Archaeology. It will examine reader profiles and explore the further potential of the digital medium. We will outline our plans for turning a research and development project into a self-supporting journal. Issues of copyright, preservation, user authentication and user licensing will each be explored in order to analyse the continuing viability of online digital publication.

• Digital Archives and Digital Publishing: Contrasts and Approaches

  Richard M. Leventhal, UCLA, & Louise Krasniewicz, UCLA

  There is growing interest in both digital publishing and the development of digital archives within archaeology. Due to this interest, the definitions and use of digital archives and digital publishing must be examined. Within this paper, digital archives and digital publishing within archaeology will be defined and examined. Both issues of immediate and long-term usage and preservation needs will be assessed. The reasons for creating archives will be contrasted with the purposes of publishing primary archaeological data and interpretations. Examples will be drawn from the UCLA Institute of Archaeology's Digital Archaeology Lab's publishing program and the archives that currently exist.

• Using Metadata to Address Problems of Data Preservation and Delivery: Examples from the Teotihuacan Data Archiving Project

  Peter McCartney, Arizona State University, Ian Robertson, Arizona State University, & George Cowgill, Arizona State University

  There is an ever-increasing need to provide for the long-term preservation of and access to archaeological data. We must fulfill this mission in ways that enhance their utility in meeting research, education, and public interest needs. We use examples from our ongoing effort to document and archive data from the Teotihuacan Mapping Project to illustrate our approaches to creating and managing data documentation, and to using such "metadata" to develop data access solutions that can best serve the interests of user audiences.

• Integrated Access To Historic Environment Information Resources

  J D Richards, Director, Archaeology Data Service, UK

  In the future there will be large numbers of focussed web gateways, each providing indexed searches and specialist interfaces to distributed resources, across which users will be able to search simultaneously. For this vision to succeed we must achieve interoperability, resting on communications protocols, metadata standards, and vocabulary control. The paper will provide an assessment of the current state of development of metadata standards, such as the Dublin core, and communications protocols, such as Z39.50, and on the basis of Archaeology Data Service experience to date it will discuss how far the dream of interoperability is now a reality.

• Accessing Excavation archives on the Internet

  Damian Robinson, Collections Development Manager, Archaeology Data Service, UK

  The Digital Archiving Pilot Project for Excavation Records is a collaborative venture between the Archaeology Data Service, English Heritage, the Museum of London Archaeology Service and the Oxford Archaeological Unit. The project aims to provide Internet access to two full digital excavation archives, to quantify the efforts and costs involved in their production and dissemination, to assess user reaction and to inform the development of best practice in the emerging field of archaeological project digital archiving. This paper will investigate the project origins and related initiatives. It will offer a future vision for archaeological digital project archives.

• If We Preserve the Files, Who Will Use Them?

  Harrison Eiteljorg, II, Archaeological Data Archive Project

  Using digital files containing archaeological information is not trivial. Using archived files that are produced by complex programs requires familiarity with those programs, or at least subsets of the program types. However, few professionals in archaeology, are adept with such programs. So who can use the files - after much time, effort, and money have been spent to keep them in accessible form? It may be instructive to consider more carefully the potential utility of digital files while digital archives are being designed and constructed for archaeological data.

• Response to Posted Papers

  Carol Lazio

Last update: 7 April 2000

This page prepared by Harrison Eiteljorg, II, 2 December 1999.