User Driven Historic Environment Records: Multi-Faceted Perspectives
Ben Robinson
Archaeologist
The implementation and development of local Sites and Monuments Records is among British archaeology's most significant achievements of the last thirty years. Sites and Monuments Records, now almost universally known as Historic Environment Records, are firmly established in local authority development control and conservation services. They also make important contributions to national strategic resource management. But the pursuit of these crucial functions has inevitably affected SMR and HER development in other respects.
It has always been envisaged that SMR information could play significant roles in archaeological research and education, and that it would be of general interest to the public. Indeed, there is good evidence for the increasing appreciation and use of SMR information over the last twenty years or so. Nevertheless, the nature of user services offered by SMRs has inhibited growth in these areas.
The most significant barrier has been one of simple physical inaccessibility to SMR information. The variable information content and data structures and quality of database user-interfaces found across the SMR community, have also played their part. Users have required persistence to gather comprehensive, comparable, and meaningful SMR information for surveys that cross several SMR boundaries. Hard-pressed staff working with hybrid digital-paper SMRs and HERs have found it difficult to deliver information in the forms that researchers and other users require.
Happily, significant progress has been made towards enabling remote access to HER information. Although only a handful of HERs currently offer Web enabled search interfaces, there are now several proven models for the others to follow. The ADS has successfully integrated comprehensive core digital records from several local HERs. A few HER services have been able to create good stand alone systems, and the English Heritage Gateway promises another route to accessibility and networking.
But as we prepare to liberate HER information, are we certain that we understand our users? Do we know how they wish to approach data gathering? Do we understand how they use HER information once they have it?
The development of SMRs and HERs, though naturally well-informed by practitioners' needs, has not been characterised by structured analysis of user needs. Recent surveys have been able to confirm that there is a strong demand for Web-based access, that people would like options to download as many information types as possible, and that they want it all for free!
Is it sufficient, however, to make vast quantities of (practitioner-structured) HER information available online, to provide some basic search tools, and expect all users to retrieve meaningful information in an appropriate way?
The different ways that users approach information gathering are revealed in HER enquiry correspondence files. Development control archaeologists and commercial users (contractors, consultants, etc.), for example, tend to ask for every HER entry within a defined search area (within a box, circle, corridor, parish, etc.). This catch-all geographic search technique usually stems from their need to assess the archaeological potential of a proposed development site using all previously recorded local evidence. They, along with other user groups, also sometimes use this search technique to gather a background of archaeological information for the discussion of evidence in a research context. In fact, they seldom find all the information recorded by the HER for a particular area relevant to their needs, and filtering is usually carried out on their behalf by HER staff.
Users associated with Higher Education employ a variety of search techniques and often combine them to form complex HER enquiries. They often approach enquiries from a thematic basis, declaring their research interests. It is an enquiry strategy that is designed to engage HER staff in the research process, by making use of their knowledge of the resources available and their ability to construct suitable searches using the tools available. In fact, although it is possible to characterise the general search habits of various user groups, each user brings their own knowledge, experience and individual requirements to HER searches. It is important to recognise this. A successful response to an HER enquiry requires an understanding of the purpose of the enquiry and an idea of the user's expectations.
Research enquiries in particular, though often demanding, can be the most rewarding enquiries fielded by HER staff. The best examples not only involve a constructive dialogue during the search process, but also generate feedback, results, and interpretations that can be used to enhance HER information holdings. Replicating these aspects of intuitive and intelligent human assistance in Web-based systems is challenging.
Several Web-enabled systems have been able to integrate helpful thematic mini essays into their search interfaces that provide starting points for enquiries, and contexts for the understanding of search results. The Common Information Environment demonstrator (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/cie/), developed by the ADS, includes a search interface that allows users to browse vast amounts of data by selecting themes (or concepts) and sub-divisions of those themes. It automatically updates the number of records that will be returned by a search as users select theme combinations. This allows users to make informed choices about the extent of their searches, and helps them to avoid being swamped with unmanageable quantities of information.
HERs have to be responsive to their users in order to increase their relevance and attractiveness and widen their appeal. Characterising the historic environment is about much more than collecting points and polygons within rigid data structures. It is about capturing perceptions and ideas. In the best traditions of archaeological dialogue, online HER systems should capture and represent the alternative models, concepts, and arguments put forward by all users with an interest in enriching our understanding, enjoyment, and management of the historic environment.
