Embedding Librarians in Archaeological Field Schools

Abstract

Participating in an archaeological field school is one of the only educational experiences that nearly all professional archaeologists have during their training. As a result, field schools are uniquely suited to provide experiential education in emerging skills that all archaeologists will need, such as information and data literacies at all stages of the contemporary research and publishing cycle. The “embedded” librarian program in the University of New Brunswick's Downeast Maine Coastal Archaeology Field School is an effective means to deploy that focused expertise to help students better understand the relationship between fieldwork, data, and dissemination. At the same time, being in the field provides librarians with the knowledge to respond more effectively to the complex data management and research needs of archaeologists. We encourage large research projects to consider librarians as specialist members of the research team.

A Survey of How Archaeological Repositories Are Managing Digital Associated Records and Data

“…That means regulators who oversee compliance, everyone who funds archaeological work, project leads, fieldworkers, people who teach others how to do archaeology (public archaeology, college, graduate level), the repositories that care for the collectionsseriously, everyone. Archaeological curation principles and information management need to better infiltrate each classroom, field project, and lab setting (Hrynick et al 2023;Warner and Rivers Cofield 2024). Although various government entities and policymakers also have a responsibility to these resources, they are unlikely to be proactive and supportive of funding for digital curation without a major education effort directed their way as well.…”