During the last six months, the Special Interest Groups have been busy behind the scenes. Here are some of the highlights.
The Grey Literature SIG met in December 2015 (via Skype) to discuss the newly published article “A Reassessment of Archaeological Grey Literature: semantics and paradoxes” by Tim Evans. This article represents a synthesis of many years of research on the history, meaning and issues surrounding the role of Grey Literature in archaeology in the UK, and was taken as a point of departure to explore perceptions of Grey Literature in other countries. Tim Evans joined the meeting and helped facilitate an excellent and useful discussion. The points were wide-ranging, with differing ideas on how to facilitate better use of Grey Literature between the different countries. There was consensus around the need to both educate and facilitate greater communication with the various stakeholders involved, including commercial and academic archaeologists, political and institutional authorities and the public. There was also agreement that more formal discussion in person under the auspices of ARIADNE would be of great use, and that members should explore ways to further open the discussion and move it forward. Another SIG meeting is planned in the upcoming months, possibly at one of the major conferences.
During October, there was a joint meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG, ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the FRBR-CIDOC CRM Harmonization group in Heraklion. Paola Ronzino and Achille Felicetti from PIN presented their work on harmonizing CRMarchaeo and CRMba, and also on CRMepi the new extension related to epigraphy. CRMepi was extensively discussed. It was proposed that CRMepi is regarded as a general model that applies not only to epigraphy but to all scholarly texts and E34 Inscription be revised accordingly.
Two of the other SIGs have also raising awareness of the issues in the areas of Linked Open Data and remote sensing and aerial data and the 3D & Visualization SIG were active at IEEE/EG Digital Heritage 2015 conference, held in Granada, Spain, where CNR-ISTI held a workshop on the 3D-HOP tool.