In the spring and summer of 1998 the ADS carried out a survey of the creation, archiving, use and re-use of digital data in archaeology. The ADS was commissioned to undertake this survey by English Heritage and the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England. Additional financial support was received from Cadw, Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, the Heritage Council (Republic of Ireland), Historic Scotland, the Royal Commissions for Scotland and Wales, and also the Arts and Humanities Data Service. This enabled the survey to be extended to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Frances Condron undertook the survey, analyses and initial draft of Strategies for Digital Data. Julian Richards, Damian Robinson and Alicia Wise edited the work and brought it to publication.
In mid-April 1998, 3,000 questionnaires were mailed to archaeologists in Britain and Ireland. This was followed by a lesser number of structured telephone interviews conducted in July 1998.
The aims and objectives of the survey are to establish for British and Irish archaeology:
- the quantity of digital data in existence
- types of digital data currently produced and their relationship to data in conventional formats
- attitudes to the production of digital data (e.g. how many organisations now collect digital data, and how many expect to do so within the next two years)
- archaeological criteria for determining which digital data should be preserved digitally and for how long
- existing approaches to the preservation of digital data
- which digital data have secondary re-use value
- which digital data have commercial value
- ways archaeologists would like to access digital data
- preferences for delivery mechanisms (e.g. CD-ROMs, diskettes, internet)
- the level of charging that would be sustainable for digital archiving
- types of training that would be necessary to enable effective use of digital archives
The results of this survey are presented in this report.
