Migrating 2 and 3D Datasets: Preserving AutoCAD at the Archaeology Data Service

Abstract

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is a digital archive that has been promoting good practice in the use of digital archaeological data and supporting research, learning and teaching with high quality and dependable digital resources for twenty years. The ADS does this by preserving digital data in the long-term and by promoting and disseminating, open and free datasets, gathered from all sectors of archaeology. An integral component of the ADS remit has been the life-cycle principle of preservation, curation and dissemination of data in order to enable re-use. The ADS practices a combination of normalization, version migration, format migration and refreshment for the active management and ongoing preservation of all archived data types. This paper highlights the importance of the ongoing management of research data for long-term preservation. In particular this paper focuses on the challenges of migrating spatial data, specifically Computer Aided Design (CAD) files. Successful data migration of these files ensures that data is accessible and usable, and provides many opportunities through data re-use to combine and re-interrogate datasets, allowing new archaeological interpretations to be developed.