Digital Archaeological Data: Ensuring Access, Use, and Preservation

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 easily find them 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; however, this essay focuses on the curation of digital archaeological data, not paper records.

考古学领域坐拥海量数据。遗憾的是，个体考古工作者、负责保护此类历史与科学信息的相关机构，以及其他对这些数据的不同维度抱有研究兴趣的群体，往往难以便捷检索到所需数据；即便成功定位到相关数据，也缺乏简便易行的使用路径。考古数据涵盖纸质与数字两种存储形态。当前数字记录的应用愈发普遍，老旧纸质档案正被逐步扫描并转换为数字格式。纸质档案的获取与保存属于重要研究议题，但本文仅聚焦于数字考古数据的编目管理，不涉及纸质档案相关内容。