Last week a group of staff travelled from the ADS office in York to Edinburgh for the Annual Chartered Institute of Archaeologists Annual Conference. The ADS and HSDS well represented as exhibitors over the two days of engaging activities, including keynote addresses, sessions and training workshops.
This year’s conference theme, ‘Building Connections’ aimed to showcase archaeological practice and innovation, providing a place for discussion and learning from each other’s experiences to create a stronger, more resilient archaeological community.
One of the highlights from the first day was ‘Future-Proofing Archaeological Data: Lessons Learned, Innovation and Better Practice’. Lasting the full day, this session explored practical experiences and innovative approaches in archaeological information management. The first talk of the season was from ADS Head of Collections Development, Dr Katie Green, who presented ‘Building Resilient Infrastructure for Large-Scale Data Preservation: an Ingest case study’. This talk focused on the new ADS and HSDS deposit system Ingest. This system features several key improvements to make depositing data a simpler process, based on years of research and consultation with our user community.
Other sessions on day one included:
- “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give” social value and public benefit in archaeology.
- Disconnected by design? (or how do we design projects to connect with diverse stakeholders?).
- Women in commercial archaeology: digital connection, safeguarding, representation and practical pathways for change.
These sessions allowed for discussions surrounding projects that have made social value and public benefit a priority, alternative and more radical approaches to engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, and the reality of women’s experiences in UK commercial archaeology using new survey data. The end of the day saw a sunny walk to the Edinburgh Street Food for an evening of food and networking.
The second day began with a session focused on the launch of new OASIS+ Modules in Archaeobotany and Zooarchaeology. The workshop showcased the modules, demonstrated how to enter records, as well as previewed the search interface. Participants were also given the opportunity to use the modules. This talk also explored how once successfully embedded into the archaeological planning framework these modules will greatly enhance the sharing, signposting and interoperability of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data, building digital connections.
Later sessions included: ‘Disseminating the results of archaeological research in the 21st century’ which discussed with ever changing audiences and needs how archaeological research can best be disseminated; ‘Heritage science: connecting scientific domains through heritage’ a panel session exploring how heritage science connects different communities of scientific practice to deliver societal benefit; and ‘Foundations and futures: building connections in Scotland’s archaeological landscape’.
We left on Thursday afternoon to catch a train back to York, pleased to have been able to represent the ADS, HSDS, and Internet Archaeology at such a prominent event while also connecting with colleagues from across the heritage sector.
