Digital Archaeological Data: Ensuring Access, Use, and Preservation

Abstract

Archaeology is awash with data. Unfortunately, individual archaeologists, institutions responsible for the preservation of this historical and scientific information, and others who would be interested in various aspects of these data often cannot find them easily and lack straightforward ways to make use of the data when they can be located. Archaeological data exist in paper and digital formats. Increasingly, digital records are more common and older paper records are being scanned and transferred to digital formats. The access to and preservation of paper records is an important topic (e.g., Fowler & Givens 1995; Drew 2004, 2010); however, this entry focuses on the curation of digital archaeological data, not paper records.