Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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Although the multidiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary project team could both get to their data faster and manipulate their
data <strong>in</strong> new ways, Fulford et al. reported that it rema<strong>in</strong>ed to be seen whether specialists would beg<strong>in</strong> to
publish their results any faster or if they would publish them electronically. Nonetheless, remote access
to the IADB was found to be especially important for specialists, as it allowed them to “become more
<strong>in</strong>tegrated with the context of their material” and enabled new levels of both <strong>in</strong>dependent and
collaborative work between specialties.
Additionally, while Fulford et al. stated that the IADB formed the “heart of the VRE,” they also
envisioned a VRE for archaeology that could support both the digital capture and manipulation of f<strong>in</strong>ds
from the field and more sophisticated levels of postexcavation analysis. The Silchester project hoped to
publish for both a specialist and public audience, and while acknowledg<strong>in</strong>g the new opportunities of
electronic publication, stated that they were simultaneously publish<strong>in</strong>g their results <strong>in</strong> pr<strong>in</strong>t as well.
“Despite the potential of web-based publication, lack of confidence <strong>in</strong> the medium- or the longer-term
susta<strong>in</strong>ability of the web-based resource has meant a cont<strong>in</strong>ued and significant reliance on traditional
pr<strong>in</strong>ted media,” Fulford et al. expla<strong>in</strong>ed, add<strong>in</strong>g that “this is as much true of Silchester as it is of
archaeology <strong>in</strong> general” (Fulford et al. 2010, 28). At the same time, the Silchester Roman town project
has created a constantly evolv<strong>in</strong>g project website and a pr<strong>in</strong>ted monograph, and has published an
article <strong>in</strong> Internet Archaeology 254 that referenced data they had archived <strong>in</strong> the ADS. 255 The creation
of a website brought with it the concurrent challenges of accessibility and susta<strong>in</strong>ability. Nonetheless,
this project demonstrated how digital publish<strong>in</strong>g offered new opportunities while not necessarily
preclud<strong>in</strong>g pr<strong>in</strong>t publish<strong>in</strong>g.
The archiv<strong>in</strong>g of the Silchester data with the ADS and the publication of an article <strong>in</strong> Internet
Archaeology that l<strong>in</strong>ked to these data occurred under the auspices of the LEAP (L<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g Electronic
Archives and Publications) project 256 and demonstrated not only the importance of the long-term
preservation of data but the potential of electronic publication for l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g archaeological research to the
actual data on which it is based. 257 Despite the importance of l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g data to their published
<strong>in</strong>terpretations, the Digital Antiquity project has also stressed that much work rema<strong>in</strong>s to be done to
encourage more archaeologists to utilize digital archives. “To achieve this potential,” McManamon and
K<strong>in</strong>tigh stated, “we must transform archaeological practice so that the digital archiv<strong>in</strong>g of data and the
metadata necessary to make it mean<strong>in</strong>gful become a standard part of all archaeological project
workflows” (McManamon and K<strong>in</strong>tigh 2010). 258
While the IADB presented a number of opportunities, it also raised three major technical challenges:
security on the web, <strong>in</strong>teroperability with other databases, and the potential of 3-D visualizations or
reconstructions for both academic and public users of the data. On this third po<strong>in</strong>t, Fulford et al. stated
that “<strong>in</strong>tegral to this is the need to l<strong>in</strong>k the evidence used to build the reconstruction with data stored <strong>in</strong>
the IADB.” The need to illustrate to users that all visualizations of Silchester on the website are based
on human <strong>in</strong>terpretation of available data was also cited as essential. The reality of human
<strong>in</strong>terpretation needs to be carefully considered <strong>in</strong> any VRE design for archaeology accord<strong>in</strong>g to Stuart
Dunn:
In the discussion of VREs, and models of data curation and distribution which are based on
central and/or <strong>in</strong>stitutional storage and dissem<strong>in</strong>ation of data, it is easy to forget the <strong>in</strong>terpretive
254 http://<strong>in</strong>tarch.ac.uk/journal/issue21/silchester_<strong>in</strong>dex.html
255 http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/archive/silchester_ahrc_2007/
256 http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/leap/
257 The tDAR has also been used as a data archive for an article <strong>in</strong> Internet Archaeology.
258 As an <strong>in</strong>itial step <strong>in</strong> this direction, the Digital Antiquity project has started a grants program to encourage deposit of data <strong>in</strong>to tDAR.