Archaeology and DAMS

Archaeology is a discipline that produces a wealth of content and, for historical archaeology in particular, a wide variety of material. The archaeological record will potentially include artifacts (possibly cross-mended in the lab to form “objects”), field records, site records, photographs, maps (GIS files), historical documentation and research, historical photographs, oral histories, scientific data (soil chemistry, ) and, PowerPoint’s, papers and report.  I’m interested to learn how archaeologists are conducting digital asset management, and how well are the artifact databases are integrated with other material? 

There’s been an explosion of digital asset management tools in recent years. The SPECTRUM Digital Asset Management report (Poole & Dawson 2013) provides a proposed methodology for thinking about managing digital assets for cultural institutions, with suggestions for developing an implementation strategy.  For projects unable, or unwilling, to commit to a full DAMS system there are tools that can help in managing digital assets: adding meta-data, retention, versions, access and rights. It’s worth noting that a DAMS system isn’t a digital archiving system, per se, and that issues of digital conservation will still need to be addressed.

A report by the Heather Packer of the ResearchSpace Project (Packer 2011) is a survey of available DAMS and content management systems.  The blending of this two areas has always confused me, but I can see from the report how many of the same functions can be performed by software with slightly different focuses. What I find useful in the report is their criteria for evaluation: storage, annotation and tagging, security and shared (and managed access). For archaeologists these tools give the ability to manage and connect – to contextualize – the varied datasets connected with a project or site. For archaeology, where context is primary, it seems even more important that data is always contained (and ultimately published) in a rich context. For reasons of public advocacy it is necessary to stress the inter-relationships of the archaeological process and subsequent outputs, to clearly differentiate the scientific discipline of archaeology from the cultural barbarism of activities like “American Diggers.”

One further specific measurement was the ability to associate semantic metadata. For the next blog I’ll do some more reading and exploration of semantic interoperability, particularly in reference to a current project with primary documents and artifacts.

Citations:

Packer, Heather (2011) Comparison of Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMs) and Content Management Systems (CMSs) accessed at:  https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=cmVzZWFyY2hzcGFjZS5vcmd8cmVzZWFyY2hzcGFjZXxneDoyODU0OWVlZWYzOGMxMzk4

 

Poole, Nick and Dawson, Alex (2013)  SPECTRUM Digital Asset Management,  Collections Trust accessed at http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/spectrum-resources/1688-spectrum-digital-asset-management

More fun to be had in the exhibit hall

I’m sure there were some great papers at the AASLH conference, but I spent my time in the exhibit hall. Most people wander through at some point, and I had the unexpected pleasure of meetings some old friends. 

So rather than talk about papers I’ll talk about neighbors! I’ve been following the work of Eduweb   for years and they’ve done some great stuff.  One of the great things they been doing is putting some resources into finding out what works. Check out the research papers at their site.

Opposite me was The Museum Bookmark Collection.  Their graphics and production quality were great. So good in fact that while I chatted across the room someone came up to my booth, ignored my material, and took the sample bookmarks I’d collected earlier!

Kapesni is on a mission to get mobile apps everywhere, and they have a very competitive pricing model. I think the current app is for iPhone with the Android app coming in a September.

Around the corner was Re:discovery  (where I worked for many years). Rediscovery is providing the back end of the upcoming NPS web catalog site which is getting some early testing. I’m very excited by the progress and early reactions. Plus they have an updated version of their archaeology module which is hierarchical, content rich and full of features.

Thanks to everyone that stopped by and chatted!

SHA 2012 part II

At the SHA meeting in Baltimore I’ll be hosting a round table session:

Web Based Public Archaeology

This roundtable discussion examines the different ways archaeologists are using websites and social media to promote archaeology. Please come with some great examples to share and discuss.

Some examples I've recently seen or been involved with:

Transitions in Virginia Slavery: part of the project funded by NEH and carried out by Dr. Barbara Heath of the University of Tennessee. We'll be adding some educational content to the web site soon.

Mount Vernon's Midden blog and Facebook presence have been well followed and full of good stuff with the new web site in progress.

Also I've also recently come across Close Encounters of the Colchester Kind...

Not just archeology, but the Park Service web catalog site is progressing. You can read about it at here.

Obviously there are many others. Please add some examples and comments below!

How effective are they? Is there a conflict between the blogger's voice and the institutional voice? Is the immediacy of blogging at odds with serious research? Is there a public audience for primary archaeological data?

Discuss!!!

SHA 2012

New NPS collections web site

The lack of blogging has been due to too much going on rather than too little! But I hope I can share projects and other news over the next few months.

July always seems early to be thinking about a January conference, but the Society for Historical Archaeology conference in Baltimore had its deadline for submissions yesterday… . My topic will be “Online archaeology databases and the public” and I mean to talk about the new NPS website, as well as other online catalogs. The Mount Vernon site - 400 extremely well described objects, in a rich context – makes a great contrast. Which is more useful to the public?

There was a great technical leaflet in the AASLH publication” Designing Education Programs that Connect Students to Collections”. It focuses on planning educational content around objects, but I think much of it applies to online collections. The national educational curriculum is doing little to help the social sciences. And unless you want to appeal to a purely local audience the different state standards make creating lessons plans difficult. It is mentioned here - and I discovered this many years ago with the Jamestown modules - it useful to look at the English learning standards which are more focused on reading for understanding than the History ones which, at least in Virginia tend to be more fact based. 

I’d be interested in anyone has site or articles looking at using online collections.

Using Primary Sources

I’m working on an education module which uses eighteenth century land patents. The module will be part of a new web site “Engaging the Piedmont: Transitions in Virginia Slavery 1730-1790” (more soon!) Archaeologists, as well as historians, use primary documents such as probate inventories and patents to gain a greater understanding of the sites on which they work.

Not only are many of these documents not available on the web, they are written in eighteenth century script. Fortunately technology can at least help students start to work with primary sources. The module below is part of a larger piece we did for the Virginia Department of Historic Resource “What Do Archaeologists Do?”

I’ve had a few people ask if they can just buy the translate box but, unfortunately, there’s a little smoke and mirrors there! It based on an idea I saw years ago “Martha Ballard’s Diary” a great site exploring primary sources. Interactive content can help students get started in looking at difficult material, but it can’t replace research quite yet.

Should You Object? Mount Vernon Midden Archaeology

New projects are always fun! Over the next few months I’ll be working with the archaeologists at Mount Vernon. We will be creating a web site based around the South Grove Midden, which is currently undergoing re-analysis. At its core will be objects: The 400 - more interesting that the 300 any day! These selected objects provide insights into the site, time period and life at Mount Vernon.

The archaeologists at Mount Vernon have prepared a comprehensive information framework for the objects. The stratigraphy of the site (detailed in supporting field and methods documentation) supplies the temporal context, and there will be a range of documentary material (including timeline, inventories and merchants accounts), along with other pages, to provide a thematic and historical context.

The fun part of the project (for me) is creating a design that helps not only in finding the objects, but in the relationships between them. Within this discrete time period it should be possible to support general queries with a structure that shows related objects, and suggests other interesting pathways through the collection and associated material.

The site is just part of the outreach. The Midden already has an active Facebook presence (Facebook: Mount Vernon’s Mystery Midden) that includes both specific and broadly contextual posts. There have been public events, conference papers and an upcoming dissertation focusing on the site.

I don’t think the web gets talked about enough when discussing public archaeology and this site will be a great example of how archaeological data can be relevant to an educated public and serve multiple audiences. Though the selection of 400 objects presents an initial level of analysis, archaeologists interested in looking at the complete data set will be able to find it at DAACS. For the rest the layered content will make material culture accessible through a contextual presentation.

Please check out this site as it develops.

Putting Virginia Archaeology on the map

Egloff Atlas of Virginia Archaeology

Google maps seem like a natural for archaeology. Though they are not fine grained enough for a single site, they excel in showing multiple sites, or indeed any spatial content. The maps form the starting point, and content – text, images, and videos – can be layered on top, along with any type of interaction.

Stories Past created a simple map for lithics last year  as part of a larger module on points and lithics.  Now we’ve put up the Egloff Atlas of Virginia, named after noted Virginia archaeologist Keith Egloff.

The map shows sites in Virginia that have archaeology and you can select by region, or by specific site. The content was developed by the Council of Virginia Archaeology and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and should serve as a way of promoting Virginia archaeology.

There are a million ways to use Google maps in interpretation and research. The development costs are low and you it comes with all the Google functionality: zooms, drag, satellite, map and street view. If the content is created through an XML file it can be easily maintained through a simple text editor. Showing routes or journeys, linking story and place, overlaying maps with layers to show distribution of artifacts across a region or country, relating time and space, showing landscape features – the list is endless as this link proves!

National Park Service - wonderful places, wonderful things

The National Park Service consists not only of wonderful places; it also manages the objects and artifacts that those places possess. Working through a co-operative agreement between the National Park Service and the University of Tennessee, I’ve been leading a project to redevelop the current web catalog site, and work with parks to increase the number of items on the site.

The scope of the collections is extraordinary; more than 42 million objects including archeology, art, history, and ethnography objects, biology, paleontology, geology specimens, and historic photographs. Currently only a small percentage is available online, and graduate students at UT have been helping add records and images.

We imagine a number of different audiences coming to the site: students and educators, researchers and park visitors. We expect they’ll come with questions about the Civil War, about specific park collections, about the household belongings of John Adams, and many, many more.

The challenge is to create a site that answers the questions of a researcher looking at maritime history, as well as the casual visitor curious about the history of the Florida parks. It’s about seeing the objects not just as individual things but as part of a park, a collection, a historic theme, or an aspect of the rich cultural and bio-diversity of the United States.

The site will be available to the public in late summer.