Taming the Beast. Approaches to Digital Archiving in Czech Archaeology

0546243 - ARÚ 2022 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Novák, David - Kuna, Martin - Lečbychová, Olga
Taming the Beast. Approaches to Digital Archiving in Czech Archaeology.
Internet Archaeology. Roč. 2021, č. 58 (2021). ISSN 1363-5387
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) EF16_013/0001439; GA MŠMT(CZ) LM2018134
Keywords : archaeological archiving * digital repositories * heritage management * primary data
OECD category: Archaeology; Archaeology (ARUB-Q)
Method of publishing: Open access
https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue58/5/ia.58.5.pdf

As in other countries, Czech archaeology has embarked on a journey of digitisation. This creates the need to cope with the rapid growth of digital data, which must be stored securely over the long term and be accessible in a comprehensible and useful way. This causes several problems. Although there is a centralised and well-resourced digital agenda that meets the requirements of the Heritage Law, outdated legislation and the absence of comprehensive rules do nothing to regulate the management of the most valuable data - the primary documentation of fieldwork events. At present, only summary information on archaeological fieldwork and the final reports, which should contain a substantial selection of documentation, are centrally collected and stored. This is a situation that is difficult to accept as primary (raw) data with a greater information value is disappearing into thin air. The premise for change lies in supplying the existing central infrastructure - The Archaeological Information System of the Czech Republic (AIS CR) - with the tools to acquire and archive primary data on a larger scale, while at the same time, amending the legal obligations imposed on archaeological practitioners. Sustainable change requires a significant overhaul of the current concept, objectives and especially the practice of archaeological fieldwork projects, particularly in the planning and post-excavation phases.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0322837