Following on from our announcement of receiving funding from the University of York’s Partnership for Academic and Commercial Engagement initiative, the ADS has been pleased to welcome Richard Lee to the team as our new Collections Development Officer.
Richards’ role is to undertake market research and develop our client/stakeholders relationships. Over the next three years he will be developing and improving the relationship between ADS and the organisations that deposit with us. He will also be looking to expand our client base by encouraging organisations who have not previously deposited archives with us to begin a new partnership.
Richard joins us having recently completed his PhD in the Archaeology department here at York. He has a career history in the archaeological sector working extensively in the Commercial sector across the country, from Kent to Cumbria and the Welsh borders to the Norfolk coast. He has also undertaken extensive archaeological fieldwork abroad in Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Benin and Qatar. Whilst working in the UK Commercial Sector many of Richard’s reports on excavation and survey have been submitted to the ADS making him both a contributor and a member of staff at the ADS.
As the primary CoreTrustSeal designated repository in England the ADS has in recent years been the recipient of a growing number of digital archives from the commercial sector including digital archives from large Infrastructure projects like HS2 and the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon project. Despite the growing number of depositions, ADS still only receives a small percentage of the estimated number of digital archives created every year from the commercial archaeology sector. This is not only putting those archives at risk of loss, if they are not being properly curated elsewhere, but it may also be limiting access to excellent archaeological research. Therefore, Richard’s aim is to not only bring more of the archives from this work to the ADS but in doing so making their Open Access available to all researchers and interested parties.
The recent launch of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologist (CiFA) Dig Digital Project (https://www.archaeologists.net/digdigital) and their guidance for future digital archiving presents a timely opportunity to expand our reach within the market. Richard’s role at the ADS begins this summer with a survey of many of the UK organisations, both large and small, undertaking archaeological excavation and survey, some of whom already deposit with the ADS but also many that don’t. The survey will ask these organisations how we could provide a more efficient service to them, in turn encouraging them to increase their depositions with us in the evolving landscape of digital archaeology. We will also be asking whether new costing models and payment options such as potential subscription services , would be of interest to our depositors.
The survey will be open during August and September so keep an eye out on the ADS Website for its announcement. Richard will also be carrying out a number of 1-to-1 interviews where deeper inquiry may furnish more specific outcomes, if you would be interested in taking part in these one to ones please email our helpdesk. This will be followed by analysis, with initial reporting of the results taking place in November which we will be sure to share with our readers.
