This string has brought up so many important issues, some of which haven't really been discussed yet:
   
  1) Are the artifacts (such as horseshoes) going to be conserved?  If not, it may be the last chance to get any data out of them at all.  You could always tell the boss poo-pooing the measurements that he could foot the bill for conservation instead (though it could certainly be argued that both good records and conservation should be required for some objects anyway).  If you don't measure the iron and you don't x-ray it or conserve it, you're never going to get much data out of it because it'll fall apart on the shelf.  Don't we have an obligation to retain the data at least?  
   
  2) Speaking of items falling apart on shelves... In response to this comment, "a long time ago, all that data was collected & recorded & archived somewhere (hint: the sun still never shines there) & basically disappeared..." I just have to make a plug for those of us working in repositories to make this stuff accessible.   Really, it hasn't all disappeared, but I wish more people would come to use it.
   
  3) And as to the argument that putting the data on the web or in spreadsheets is the answer to making our work more palatable, we are also trying to make collections available digitally (see www.chesapeakearchaeology.org for a good example).  However, if anyone thinks that digitizing data is more worthwhile than proper collections management of the actual field/lab records and objects, consider the rapidity with which computer technology and memory storage changes.  Digital archive management is just as difficult and expensive as collections management, if not more so.  If we stay on top of it, our data may be more accessible, but I don't know if it follows that it's more likely to get used.  I've never seen anyone get as excited about our websites as they do about the artifacts in person.  Most people prefer the real deal.  As a result, our websites often serve as an advertisement to get people to come here and use the collections as opposed to the off-site research tool
 they were meant to be.
   
  Sara Rivers Cofield
  Curator, Federal Collections
  Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory

       
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