By Michael Ashley
Participants of the 2009 Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) gathered early this morning (early for those of us in California PST) to discuss and debate practical approaches for preserving our past digitally.
discussion digital conservation for archaeology
The workshop, entitled ‘Practical resources and integrated services for preserving Cultural Heritage: Strategies for a Brighter Future,’ sought to put a spotlight on the diverse standards for documenting cultural heritage, especially in the creation, management and preservation of digital resources.
Chairs on hand were Stephen Stead (Paveprime Ltd), Mark Mudge (Cultural Heritage Imaging), and Carla Schroer (Cultural Heritage Imaging). Michael Ashley (Cultural Heritage Imaging / UC Berkeley) joined via iChat from California. C0-Organizer Cinzia Perlingieri wasn’t present but participated in the first workshop of this series, held in CAA 2007.
A small but intimate gathering, we kicked off with a video position paper I prepared (available on YouTube soon, check the Cultural Heritage Imaging channel later this week), then jumped into a discussion that centered on what is important to save and how, and for how long. Steve seconded my point that we should by taking a 1000 year strategic view of data. In order to do this, it’s essential to capture the context and decision making steps that went into creating the data in the first place. This is most often not done, in part because most data schemes either don’t allow for it or don’t make it easy to do. For some thoughts on the long, long term, check out the Long Now Foundation (quoted in the video paper):
The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.
Take-aways: We agreed that capturing good semantic information about ‘what matters’ is not trivial and is still really hard to do. But we also agreed to stop whining and get on with it. Steve suggested we start by building out a spot to carry on the discussion in the CIDOC documentation discussion forum, and we all agreed this is a great start. We’ll also work to promote these ideas in our own practices and organizations.
I’ll update this post with a list of participants and organizations once I get it next week.
Filed under: Grants
I am so excited that we won a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT). The reason this project is so great is that we partnered with an amazing group of people to win the grant. Working with rock art experts, we will create a comprehensive 2-day workshop for 3D digital rock art documentation and preservation. We will also create some web-based training materials that will be available on our partners’ websites and on our website.
Check out http://www.c-h-i.org/ncptt/2008/index.html to read more about this project and our partners.
Filed under: Workshops
What types of digital imaging techniques are available and what technique use existing equipment for superior results? Cultural Heritage Imaging is now offering a workshop that answers these questions. The name of the workshop is “Digital Imaging Techniques for Conservation & Education.”
One of Cultural Heritage Imaging’s goals is to train museum conservators, photographers, and archaeologists to use easy, low-cost digital technologies so they can preserve their cultural heritage artifacts. This workshop supports this goal. After taking this class, some participants will want a more hands-on intensive training and we do offer a four day training class.
For more information, visit http://www.c-h-i.org/workshops_consulting/workshops_consulting.html .
Cultural Heritage Imaging 