Some time ago we undertook a small project with Wessex Archaeology looking at the possibility of using the OASIS system to deliver small (under 50) image archives associated with the project recorded in OASIS. The project was to look at the delivery ‘in principle’ of images and used rather old-fashioned technologies to affect the transfer.
With the launch of ADS-easy, our new on-line e-archiving system, we have been able to utilise the functionality of ADS-easy to facilitate the quick upload of these small image archives. Continue reading OASIS: new image upload facility →

Back in 2012 the ADS archived and released the English Heritage Geophysical Survey Database. It was originally created in 1995 to provide a publicly accessible index of all the geophysical surveys of archaeological sites undertaken by English Heritage. Shortly after its inception its remit was expanded to include information about all surveys carried out over scheduled monuments and protected for which a licence is required under Section 42 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas act 1979. A further pilot project in the late 1990s to record details of surveys in England carried out in the commercial and academic sectors added details of over a thousand new surveys to the database. However, it was not possible to continue this project and make the database a fully comprehensive record of English geophysical surveys. Nevertheless, by the end of 2011 the database contained records of more than 2,700 surveys stretching back to the late 1960s. Continue reading Where does all the (OASIS) data go? Part 2: OASIS enhances the geophysics survey database →

The guiding principle behind the development of the original OASIS system was to capture event data once and allow its use many times to feed into many recording systems. This principle holds true today, over a decade after the launch of OASIS. It has been demonstrated most recently with the inclusion of OASIS metadata from completed and signed off OASIS records within the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network, or MEDIN, portal. Continue reading Where does all the (OASIS) data go? Part 1: An OASIS in the sea…working with the Marine Environmental Data and Information Network (MEDIN). →

One of the things that engaging with the OASIS system can do is provide a quick easy and cost free means of HERs linking from their records to the relevant reports. Some HERs currently put this to good use and you can see examples in the Heritage Gateway of HERs, like Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, providing a really rich resource to the user. So if you are not already doing it, how do you go about doing this linking? Continue reading Ask not what you can do for OASIS, but what OASIS can do for you! →

We all know that the historic environment sector has undergone a great degree of upheaval over the last few years as a result of the recession-busting moves by both central and local government and, perhaps even more importantly, the slump in building activity. It is therefore even more heartening to be able to announce an investment in OASIS to redevelop the system to better meet the needs of the historic environment community it endeavours to serve. Continue reading Historic Environment Research Archives, Links and Data (HERALD): a new beginning for OASIS →