Thanks very much for the analysis of the site that we launched. It was a collaborative effort, which involved the work of many, some people I still don't have the names of. I want to give them all credit for their hard work on the site eventually.
Everything the Portable Antiquities Scheme produces, we want to share as widely as possible. Our database of 410,000 objects found by the public of England and Wales (and overseas visitors) is made available for anyone to search (it is rather slow, but I am rebuilding that!) and for academics to reuse. We give away our data with just a call for attribution back to the source. What we're recording is a legacy of the destructive nature of archaeology - be it professional intervention or amateur metal detecting.
I'm not sure everyone in the archaeological sector will agree with how the website was built, methods used etc. However, I built this at the cost of the domain names in 12 hours after I was informed by the boss that we were showcasing online. Standing on the shoulders of others, you can really produce good quality web sites quickly, and I hope people have enjoyed it. The site will keep developing and be embellished with the full object records in due course. In terms of IT cost, I have a budget of £4-5k per annum, which I spend on hosting and bandwidth fees - it's shoestring stuff. Our Scheme costs £1.3million a year to employ circa 50 people. It is great value and allows us to appreciate things like the hoard. Sorry, probably gone on a bit there!
All Comments
Everything the Portable Antiquities Scheme produces, we want to share as widely as possible. Our database of 410,000 objects found by the public of England and Wales (and overseas visitors) is made available for anyone to search (it is rather slow, but I am rebuilding that!) and for academics to reuse. We give away our data with just a call for attribution back to the source. What we're recording is a legacy of the destructive nature of archaeology - be it professional intervention or amateur metal detecting.
I'm not sure everyone in the archaeological sector will agree with how the website was built, methods used etc. However, I built this at the cost of the domain names in 12 hours after I was informed by the boss that we were showcasing online. Standing on the shoulders of others, you can really produce good quality web sites quickly, and I hope people have enjoyed it. The site will keep developing and be embellished with the full object records in due course.
In terms of IT cost, I have a budget of £4-5k per annum, which I spend on hosting and bandwidth fees - it's shoestring stuff. Our Scheme costs £1.3million a year to employ circa 50 people. It is great value and allows us to appreciate things like the hoard. Sorry, probably gone on a bit there!
Here's to a great day for archaeology.
Dan