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Cambridgeshire Heritage Gateway Pilot. Sarah Poppy sarah.poppy@cambridgeshire.gov.uk. Heritage Gateway Previews. Why join the Heritage Gateway?. Rapid and cost-effect means of establishing HER online Strong belief in common access point to Historic Environment information
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Cambridgeshire Heritage Gateway Pilot Sarah Poppy sarah.poppy@cambridgeshire.gov.uk Heritage Gateway Previews
Why join the Heritage Gateway? • Rapid and cost-effect means of establishing HER online • Strong belief in common access point to Historic Environment information • No need to reinvent the wheel! • Economies of scale and potential for future capacity building (mapping, delivery of proposed Register of Historic Sites and Buildings of England)
Why we became a pilot? • Involvement with Heritage Gateway via ALGAO and HBSMR user group • Keen to test and demonstrate concept • Long-term aspirations to put HER online • Objective in Archaeology Service Plan • Online HER access required to support newly established SLAs with districts • Demand from local community! • HLF route or in-house development not viable options • Cambridgeshire was first HER to go live on the Heritage Gateway in April 2007!
Processes involved – HBSMR Gateway • Had to follow local authority compliance procedure • Some difficulty in engaging with IT department • Don‘t underestimate time and effort required! • Preinstallation discussions between IT department, exeGesIS and HER • Software and hardware prerequisites (SQL server, web server) • Consideration of which data to put online • Customisation of HER record layout • 2 day site visit to install and configure • Desktop routine to manually upload HER data • Remote support provided by exeGesIS and IT department
What the HG is intended for? • Increased public and education sector access to HER records, without need for consultation • Provide background/context information for all research • Enable HER resources to be targeted at professional enquiries, data enhancement and digitisation and future developments e.g. meeting requirements of HPR • Building much-needed links between local and national datasets
What the HG is not intended for? • Not replacing the need for planning-related HERs consultations • Why not? • Some datasets not accessible via HG, such as Scheduled Monuments, Listed Buildings, fieldwork, cropmark transcription • Will not contain information about projects in progress • “Sensitive sites” may be withheld from public access • NGRs are 6-figure only • GIS data not available at present
Potential concerns • Quality of data • HER data is published “as is” • Culmination of 5-year data enhancement project • However no mediated “public access” content, and older records of variable quality • Loss of income • Average £4k p.a generated from HER enquiries • Income from other sources e.g. SLAs, selling GIS data • HG should not replace planning-related enquiries - will require monitoring! • Standing still was not an option …
The future: dissemination and beyond… • Spreading the word • Launched at Cambridgeshire Archaeology Forum in June • HG preview events at five locations • Hands-on sessions in libraries and learning centres • Local society workshop at Cambridge Antiquarian Society Conference • Promotion via CCC website • EH project to make village/parish linkages
The future: dissemination and beyond… • In the future… • Formalising IT support arrangements • Collation of feedback and web-statistics • HLF bid in preparation for community archaeology project includes development of online education and thematic resources • Ongoing digitisation projects to add supporting content and resources (grey literature, images etc) • Key requirement is ability to hyperlink to single HG record