Inventory 1964-2014: Crowdsourcing the National Monuments Record

Jamie Davies

Cymdeithas Archaeoleg a Hanes Llŷn / Llŷn Archaeology and History Society

• 2014• 50th Anniversary of the RCAHMW’s Inventory- Caervonshire Vol III: West An inventory of

the Ancient Monuments in the County

‘providing an updated snapshot of sites recorded in 1964 and of the surviving heritage of the Llŷn Peninsula’.

• Second year of Cymdeithas Archaeoleg a Hanes Llŷn - Digital and community engagement and innovation

The Llŷn Peninsula has become the digital frontier for the development and engagement with heritage.

• Link to the CBA’s Festival of British Archaeology• RCAHMW under threat- keen to promote their good work• Crowdsourcing the buzzword in heritage• RCAHMW looking at user generated content for the NMR- Coflein • Link to HER- Benefit Gwynedd Archaeological Trust through the use of the Historic

Environment Record in planning guidance. – Importance for Heritage Management and Protection

New Model Proposal

New Model Society – Founded CBA Festival of Archaeology 2013•Bilingualism- Welsh Language Society •Combine Archaeology and History •Bottom up- questionnaires, research agenda (Understand what people want)•Flexible structure- not traditional rigid structure •Collate previous research (Understand what has been done)•Transparency- archaeological research = Newsletter•Encourage individual research and dissemination- lectures, heritage guide, published on website•Virtual Society- Digital Volunteers•Digital- Facebook Community, Twitter- #ArchLlŷn, Facebook Photos, share information, news•Partnerships- Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, Felin Uchaf, Bangor University, AONB Llŷn, Llŷn Landscape Partnership, Llŷn Maritime Museum, National Trust, Ancient Arts , Peoples Collection Wales and RCAHMW. •WCVA 2014 - Mapping community heritage organisations in Wales. WCVA report on archaeological, civic and conservation societies•http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/about/partnershipsandprojects/research/wcva-report/?lang=en

Inventory• Website based on the

publication (which has been available free of charge on GooglePlay since 2012), containing original digitized site records, plans and note.

• OCR to obtain text- which needed to be manually formatted into each Wordpress page (by site) 9 websites with 1000+ page entries

• Errors in the text

Website• Website had to be accessible for the Digital

Volunteers and low cost (ArchLlyn ethos)• Built by Simon Jones (Cymdeithas Penygraig)• Wordpress site- actually 9 wordpress sites

(grouped by parishes)

• http://www.crwydro.co.uk/

• Aberdaron – Bardsey – Bodferin• Bryncroes – Botwnnog – Mellteyrn• Abererch – Deneio – Llannor• Boduan – Ceidio – Llandudwen• Edern – Nefyn – Pistyll – Carnguwch• Llanbedrog – Penrhos• Llangian – Llanengan – Llandygwnning• Rhiw – Llanfaelrhys• Llangwnnadl-Llaniestyn- Penllech-Tudweiliog

• Only sites recorded in 1964 publicationHeritage is a changing concept, with today's sites, tomorrow's heritage. Therefore back in 1964, sites such as

Second World War defences at Porth Neigwl, Penrhos and RAF Nefyn , which we now consider important archaeological sites were not. Furthermore sites new discovered through archaeological surveys and excavation since 1964 are not included. Given the limited scope of this project, we are only focussed on those recorded in the 1964 publication, for the current record of sites, go to Coflein.

• Inventory in English, however it was decided not to translate the publication as it was a product of it’s time (authenticity

• The website and guidelines were bilingual and comments were welcomed (we did have some)

-One of the first complaints

Digital Volunteers

• 13 Digital Volunteers- each given a parish to moderate

• Excluding Simon and Jamie

• How to contribute?

• - Visit a site registered in the inventory - take photos etc. Please follow the Visiting Best Practice.

• -Upload through Inventory 1964-2014 website, by site by parish page

• - At the bottom of the site page, there is an upload section (Name, Email address, comment and browse-for photographs).

• What to take a photo of?

• A photograph of the complete site, features of interest, areas at risk or that have been conserved or restored.

• What to comment on?

• Ideally we are seeking a current site description, condition and use , other info (memories, associations etc).

• Criteria for inclusion

• Image Quality

• Image Relevance

• Copyright - The image must have been taken by the uploader. Scanned postcards and other historic scans will not be included.

• - Moderation - After publishing your content they will be sent to moderation by the Digital Volunteers before appearing live on the site for others to view.

• Photographic standards- Tiff (.tif) files rather than JPEG (.jpg) and Image file title should reflect site name. This is important for archiving as this is known as metadata.

• Guidance from: GAT, RCAHMW, Heritage Together

New Data• During the course of 6 months, there were

242 uploads to the site (pictures, links and comments) by 24 contributors.

• Created an important resource of new knowledge and information which will inform future heritage management and preserve these sites for the future.

Success: 16th Century Saethon

• Condition: slightly altered but generally good.

• This no longer applies!

• 2014• Upload from

2003• Agreed

response procedure

Success: Personal Connections-Neuadd Bodgale

Success: New Research: Meillionydd

Success: Social Media advertising

• Cymdeithas Archaeoleg a Hanes Llŷn’s ethos is all digital

• The campaign was advertised through social media (Facebook and Twitter), enewsletters, on heritage websites (Bajr) and a couple of error filled local newspaper reports

• Are you coming to the Llŷn Peninsula on holiday in 2014?• Do you live here?• If so, get your camera out and visit our heritage sites!

Issue: Spam

• The problem of spam in digital projects (over 4600 spam comments)

Issue: Digital Volunteers

• 3 poorly attended Digital Workshops (3/10 volunteers turned up)

• Actual participation by volunteers very low

Now: Data ProcessingRCAHMW obtain access to Wordpress database and CSV file

Sort and clean data for integration with NMR and HERProblems: PRN Numbers do not correspond, inclusion of links,

inclusion of anonymous data