The print version of Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration was released this week by the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. Edited by Eric Kansa (Lead Developer of Open Context), and Sarah Witcher-Kansa (Executive Director of Alexandria Archive Institute), and Ethan Watrall (MATRIX Associate Director & Assistant Professor of Anthropology)the volume is the first book in the Cotsen Institute’s new Digital Archaeology Series. The book can be purchased from the David Brown Book Company. An open acces version of the book is also available at the University of California’s eScholarship repository.

The volume’s description reads:

How is the Web transforming the professional practice of archaeology? And as archaeologists accustomed to dealing with “deep time,” how can we best understand the possibilities and limitations of the Web in meeting the specialized needs of professionals in this field? These are among the many questions posed and addressed in Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, edited by Eric Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall. With contributions from a range of experts in archaeology and technology, this volume is organized around four key topics that illuminate how the revolution in communications technology reverberates across the discipline: approaches to information retrieval and information access; practical and theoretical concerns inherent in design choices for archaeology’s computing infrastructure; collaboration through the development of new technologies that connect field-based researchers and specialists within an international archaeological community; and scholarly communications issues, with an emphasis on concerns over sustainability and preservation imperatives. This book not only describes practices that attempt to mitigate some of the problems associated with the Web, such as information overload and disinformation, it also presents compelling case studies of actual digital projects—many of which are rich in structured data and multimedia content or focused on generating content from the field “in real time,” and all of which demonstrate how the Web can and is being used to transform archaeological communications into forms that are more open, inclusive, and participatory. Above all, this volume aims to share these experiences to provide useful guidance for other researchers interested in applying technology to archaeology.

Matrix is happy to announce the publication of “Preserving the H-Net Email Lists: A Case Study in Trusted Digital Repository Assessment” by former Matrix archivist Lisa M. Schmidt, currently the Electronic Records Archivist for Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections. This publication is the result of a two-year project to assess and improve the preservation of the academic email lists of the H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online consortium using the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC): Criteria and Checklist. In 2007, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) awarded a grant to MATRIX to assess the H-Net email list archives as a trusted digital repository. Matrix hosts the H-Net consortium on its servers. The H-Net email lists provide a record of more than twenty years of academic discourse on humanities and social science research likely to be useful to future scholars and thus worthy of preservation.

According to Schmidt, “The study of the H-Net email list system as a preservation environment marked the first formal application of the TRAC to email list archives and demonstrated the successful audit of a repository functioning as a live access system. Those who manage LISTSERV-based and other email lists containing scholarly discourse, such as JISCMail, and even list managers for lists that document less formal dialogue, such as the Society of American Archivists’ Archives and Archivists (A&A) discussion list, may find the results of this study useful in creating and improving the preservation practices for their list archives.”

“Preserving the H-Net Email Lists: A Case Study in Trusted Digital Repository Assessment” appears in the spring/summer 2011 issue of The American Archivist (74:1) and is available online from The Society of American Archivists.

MATRIX is very happy to announce the publication of Archaeology 2.0: New Tools for Communication and Collaboration.  Co-edited by Eric C. Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall (MATRIX Associate Director and Department of Anthropology Anthropology Assistant Professor), the volume explores how the web is transforming archaeology and is the first in the new Cotsen Digital Archaeology series published by UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.

The volume’s description reads:

How is the Web transforming the professional practice of archaeology? And as archaeologists accustomed to dealing with “deep time,” how can we best understand the possibilities and limitations of the Web in meeting the specialized needs of professionals in this field? These are among the many questions posed and addressed in Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, edited by Eric Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall. With contributions from a range of experts in archaeology and technology, this volume is organized around four key topics that illuminate how the revolution in communications technology reverberates across the discipline: approaches to information retrieval and information access; practical and theoretical concerns inherent in design choices for archaeology’s computing infrastructure; collaboration through the development of new technologies that connect field-based researchers and specialists within an international archaeological community; and scholarly communications issues, with an emphasis on concerns over sustainability and preservation imperatives. This book not only describes practices that attempt to mitigate some of the problems associated with the Web, such as information overload and disinformation, it also presents compelling case studies of actual digital projects—many of which are rich in structured data and multimedia content or focused on generating content from the field “in real time,” and all of which demonstrate how the Web can and is being used to transform archaeological communications into forms that are more open, inclusive, and participatory. Above all, this volume aims to share these experiences to provide useful guidance for other researchers interested in applying technology to archaeology.

The digital edition of the volume is especially important because it is open access (hosted by the  University of California eScholarship service) and being made available freely to the scholarly community and the public under a Creative Commons BY-SA (By Attribution, Share Alike) license.

The volume’s c0-editors went so far as to a prepare a unique copyright statement in order to provide both context and rationale for why the open access edition of the volume under this specific CC license:

This volume carries a Creative Commons BY-SA (By Attribution, Share Alike, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) license. In short, this means that others can freely distribute, remix, and build upon the contents of this volume, provided two very important conditions are met: the original author receives proper attribution (especially citation) and all subsequent works carry the same license. We chose a Creative Commons license primarily because of our deep concerns in the sustainability of sharply escalating costs in scholarly publishing. These costs make it increasingly difficult for educational institutions, our col- leagues in commercial archaeology, students, and members of the interested public to (legally) obtain peer-review publications. Please note that the Creative Commons BY-SA license allows for commercial use, as well as free distribution both inside and out- side of the Academy. Permissions for commercial reuse does not, however, mean commercial appropriation. The “copyleft” philosophy embodied by this license enables this work to move in many contexts, but any adaptation or enhancement of this work must be shared back, openly, with the community. Finally, because this license requires proper attribution in any subsequent duplication or adaptation, we hope this volume helps build exposure and recognition for our contributions, and that our colleagues follow in this example. With enough accessible and open data (“data” that includes content like this book), we open up more opportunities for text-mining, tagging, aggregating, linking, visualizing, and hopefully better understanding. 

The print edition of the volume will be available for purchase from UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.