15th April 2010, 01:57 PM
Have come into this late, so I'm not going to comment on too much!
HERs/SMRs - Many in the south of England charge for their staff time (where it is over and above a minumum in many cases - often half an hour) and charge everyone. Speaking from experience in setting up a charging regime in a similar type of collection, this is because it is difficult to work out who is public/commercial/aceademic. (For example - if an academic is being paid to do the research, where do they fit.....)
I insist that OASIS is in any WSIs I approve, whether I have a commercial or a curatorial hat on.
Academics accessing grey literature - I have seen it happen, but not often. I agree that many I have come across have been put off by the fact that the reports have not been written in order to answer their needs. I agree with an earlier contributor that many do not seem to understand the layout of the reports - a problem which also seems to beset some commercial archaeologists.
And a final point - Interpretation/assessment in 'grey literature' - this is a vital part of any report. It needs a certain amount of research (to see if anyone else has found anything similar in the next field at the very least!) and consideration. In order to do this, you need the people who have done the site work (hopefully at least one of whom is writing it up!) to have done their job properly and actually thought about it. You can't decide what the relationship between those two ditches is unless someone has worked it out at the time!
HERs/SMRs - Many in the south of England charge for their staff time (where it is over and above a minumum in many cases - often half an hour) and charge everyone. Speaking from experience in setting up a charging regime in a similar type of collection, this is because it is difficult to work out who is public/commercial/aceademic. (For example - if an academic is being paid to do the research, where do they fit.....)
I insist that OASIS is in any WSIs I approve, whether I have a commercial or a curatorial hat on.
Academics accessing grey literature - I have seen it happen, but not often. I agree that many I have come across have been put off by the fact that the reports have not been written in order to answer their needs. I agree with an earlier contributor that many do not seem to understand the layout of the reports - a problem which also seems to beset some commercial archaeologists.
And a final point - Interpretation/assessment in 'grey literature' - this is a vital part of any report. It needs a certain amount of research (to see if anyone else has found anything similar in the next field at the very least!) and consideration. In order to do this, you need the people who have done the site work (hopefully at least one of whom is writing it up!) to have done their job properly and actually thought about it. You can't decide what the relationship between those two ditches is unless someone has worked it out at the time!