I have used relational databases for over 20 years to catalogue artefacts.
I have used many software programs - as dictated by my client or curation
facility - including Dbase, Access, Filemaker Pro (not really relational)
and Paradox. By far the best product is Paradox. However, Access plays
better with other software applications if you plan to import data into a GIS
program, MS Word document, etc.
Jeanne Harris
Urban Analysts
In a message dated 23/12/2009 6:05:39 P.M. AUS Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
There are 10 messages totalling 460 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. help with razors and dressing combs (3)
2. Relational Databases (3)
3. CFP: Warring for America, 1803--1818, 3/2010, LOC
4. Relational Database (3)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:13:03 -0500
From: Michael Berry <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: help with razors and dressing combs
" Meaning what=2C exactly? ..."
=20
This sort of response is exactly what discourages new posters to the list.
=
There is no need to belittle someone=2C whatever your opinion is regarding=
their message.
=20
Michael Berry=2C Phd
Abacus Archaeological Services
=20
> Date: Mon=2C 21 Dec 2009 22:26:53 +0100
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: help with razors and dressing combs
> To: [log in to unmask]
>=20
> Meaning what=2C exactly? I'm sure I've read something about the history
o=
f warriors' hairstyles somewhere: ancient Greeks liked theirs long=2C
Willi=
am the Conqueror got his men to cut theirs short before invading England
to=
reduce the risk of parasites=2C some of the Napoleonic cavalry got pretty =
elaborate with moustaches=2C beards & braids...
>=20
> -----Original Message-----
>=20
> Hi there=2C
> Can anyone tell me of any anthropological and/or ethnographic studies on
> hair combing and shaving?=20
=20
_________________________________________________________________
Ready. Set. Get a great deal on Windows 7. See fantastic deals on Windows
7=
now
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=3D9691818=
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:52:53 -0500
From: Benjamin Carter <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Relational Databases
John,
For my dissertation, I used Microsoft Access to organize nearly 500,000
pieces of information on prehistoric shell beads from Ecuador. Access
made it much easier and it helped me avoid simple mistakes. For example,
some contexts contained over 100 beads. Because I used a relational
database, I was able to set it up so that I did not have to enter site,
level, unit, etc... over and over again. The biggest issue is that it is
a pain in the behind to set up. It takes a long time to get all of the
settings correct. Even considering this, it saved me a lot of time and I
am quite sure that I made many fewer errors (especially since I used
digital calipers to enter measurements electronically rather than typing
them in).
The main advantage, however was in analysis. I could perform a query and
produce a spreadsheet with only the data that I wanted to analyze, then
export it to a statistical package ( I used SPSS) and analyze it.
Because the database was so large, I would never have been able to do
this with a simple spreadsheet. Actually, I would have been able to do
it, but it would have taken much longer and been much more complicated
and likely would have introduced error.
I have also been using Microsoft Access for excavation. I don't have the
system completed, otherwise, I would send you a copy, but it will be
linked throughout with every piece of data (including student field
notes, Munsell colors, Lat/Long positions, photographs, etc...)
I would also encourage you to look at OpenOffice Base. I have only begun
to see what it looks like, but what I have seen is promising although
support is less than ideal. But, that is the cost of 'free'.
Cheers,
Ben Carter, PhD, RPA
John Foster wrote:
> Greetings:
>
> I was reading Keller's article on relational databases for archaeology
in the SAA record and was wondering what people were using and how they
liked the various programs. Any information would be appreciated.
>
> John M. Foster, RPA
> Greenwood and Associates
> Greenwood-Associates.com
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:40:45 -0500
From: Megan Springate <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: CFP: Warring for America, 1803--1818, 3/2010, LOC
Forwarded from the Early American History and Culture list. They are
looking for a multi-disciplinary approach to the years surrounding the War
of 1812.
--Megan Springate.
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: CFP: Warring for America, 1803--18, 3/2010, LOC
From: "John Saillant" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, December 22, 2009 10:11 am
To: [log in to unmask]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warring for America, 1803–1818—Call for Papers
Call for Papers
A Multidisciplinary Conference co-sponsored by
The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, The
Huntington Library, the New York University Department of History, and
The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress
March 31–April 1, 2011, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Electronic access is at
http://oieahc.wm.edu/conferences/1812/callpaper.html
The War of 1812, the first declared war in the history of the United
States, erupted in the midst of countervailing forces shaping America in
the first decades of the nineteenth century. From the Louisiana Purchase
of 1803 to the Seminole War of 1818; from the close of the Atlantic slave
trade in 1807 to the founding of the American Colonization Society in
1817; from the resumption of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803 to the second
Barbary War in 1815; from New Jersey’s revocation of female suffrage in
1807 to Frances Wright's arrival in America in 1818; from the publication
of Tabitha Gilman Tenney’s parodic sentimental novel Female Quixotism
(1801) to Washington Irving's Sketch-Book (1819); from Charles Willson
Peale’s The Exhumation of the Mastodon (1806) to Charles Bird King’s
portrait of Secretary of War John C. Calhoun (1818), this understudied era
was crowded with events destined to unsettle the so-called revolutionary
settlement.
At once postcolonial and neoimperial, the America of 1812 was still in
need of definition. The decision to go to war catalyzed a critical era,
one too often dismissed as an insignificant interregnum between the world
of Jefferson and the world of Jackson. In contrast to the progressive
experimentation of the 1780s and 1790s, the years surrounding the War of
1812 can be characterized as a period of narrowing possibilities and
sharpening distinctions. Yet, the volatile elements that converged in the
war and that emerged, transformed, point to the generative instabilities
of the early Republic. This pivotal period merits further scholarly
consideration.
The conference’s title, “Warring for America, 1803–1818,” seeks to
uncouple the War of 1812 from its stale fixture as the finale of the
revolutionary era. Henry Adams contended that “many nations have gone to
war in pure gayety of heart; but perhaps the United States were first to
force themselves into a war they dreaded, in the hope that the war itself
might create the spirit they lacked.” Historians have largely followed
Adams’s lead, interpreting the War of 1812 as a second War for
Independence, a crisis meant to “create the spirit” of American
nationalism. This conference, conversely, will consider the war as a
volitional conflict that resulted from a confluence of many social,
cultural, and geopolitical pressures and that had divergent consequences
for the future of the extended republic.
We invite scholars from a wide spectrum of disciplines—from history and
literature to art history and material culture—to consider from new
perspectives the struggles among Indians, Britons, Canadians,
Euro-Americans, and African Americans throughout the North American
continent, the Caribbean, and across the Atlantic Ocean. At issue were
conflicting visions for control over territory, meanings of liberty, and
distributions of power that came into focus through the upheaval of war.
Proposals should address the connections between the new republic’s
underlying tensions and the promulgation, execution, and explanations of
the war itself. We encourage submission of proposals for new, original
work that is not committed for publication elsewhere, as a volume of
essays resulting from the conference is anticipated.
Possible paper or panel topics include:
* Origins of war and consequences of peace
* Citizenship: gender, race, and sovereignty
* Transformations in artistic and literary genres and representations
of “America”
* Postcolonialism, nationalism, imperialism, expansionism, regionalism
* Continental and hemispheric events and repercussions: Shawnee,
Creek, and Seminole Wars, Haitian Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and
Louisiana, Latin American wars for independence, slave trade, contest
for Canada and Mexico
* Fronts of conflict, including the household, frontier, plantation, sea
* Washington, D.C.: from new capital to pillaged city
* Reconfigurations: revitalization to removal, abolition to
colonization, Jeffersonianism to American system, First Bank of the
U.S. to Second Bank of the U.S., printing to publishing, America as an
object of natural history to the U.S. as a subject of history
* Narratives and memories of the war
* The Era of Good Feelings?: political factionalism, sectionalism,
racism
Submit a one- to two-page synopsis of your paper proposal and a short-form
c.v. no later than January 15, 2010. Submissions must be done
electronically, either online at the conference Web site,
http://oieahc.wm.edu/conferences/1812/cfp/index.cfm, or by email to the
Omohundro Institute’s webmaster, Kim Foley, at [log in to unmask] Include on
the c.v. complete contact information (mail, email, and telephone). All
submissions will be acknowledged by email. If you do not receive an
acknowledgment, please resubmit or contact Kim Foley.
Program Committee: Fredrika J. Teute, Omohundro Institute; Nicole Eustace,
New York University; Rob Parkinson, Shepherd University; Carolyn Brown,
Library of Congress.
John Saillant
Editor, H-OIEAHC
OIEAHC <www.wm.edu/oieahc>
William and Mary Quarterly <www.wm.edu/oieahc/wmq>
Conferences and Calls for Papers <www.wm.edu/oieahc/conferences/index.html>
Joining the Associates <http://oieahc.wm.edu/support/join.html>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:46:50 -0900
From: Robert Dean <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Relational Databases
From a purely data management point of view, I have thoroughly enjoyed
developing databases using Filemaker Pro and MS Access.
I am more familiar with older version of Filemaker Pro, but I assume the
more recent versions (with which I have less experience) as essentially
the
same. Filemaker has some pre-established scripts which are easy to put
together to do relatively complicated tasks, and basic but useful things
like stripping (removing spaces from each end of field) or concenating (I
spelled that wrong) - the addition of one field to another to create new
data, like First Name plus Last Name = Name. Filemaker allows more novice
users to do all that interesting stuff without Visual Basic, which you have
to do for some of the more complicated things in MS Access. I produced a
series of databases in Filemaker Pro to help a previous employer control
information better, including assigning unique identifying serial numbers
to
most artifacts, even for small projects, all taken care of by the database.
Filemaker Pro no longer has mobile support (save for the iPhone, which I
probably wouldn't suggest taking into the field).
MS Access is more complicated, but that comes with benefits. As long as you
are using an .mdb file (I think in MS Access 2007 you can also use a new
type of database file, but .mdb files are still the default) you can
integrate tabular data with GIS data. MS Access runs on the same Jet
database engine as ESRI's personal geodatabase GIS file. The two files are
interchangable. For small businesses and land managers for small parcels,
saw a coupe thousand acres, this is a powerful way to integrate GIS and
tabular data management in a single application in a very cool way. I have
enjoyed learning how to user MS Access and have developed several database
applications for my local Heritage program. I have also been able to
integrate separate databases to increase the power of each database. There
is no longer mobile support for MS Access. However, if you google MS Access
mobile you will be able to find some purchasable Visual Basic mobile apps
that allow you to run MS Access databases on mobile devices, which can help
in the field (I am a fan of direct data entry in the field, and then
manipulating that data using forms to produce certain parts of a report...a
big time saver). If you are so inclined, and have some extra cash, there
are
also Microsoft mobile developer tools, for a price, to develop your own
mobile applications. Of course you can also simply take a computer into the
field.
A key use of relational databases can be twofold, to force people to enter
specific values into a field and reduce the bloating of the number of
fields
normally encountered in spreadsheets. Not only can you limit the values
allowed in a field using forms or post-data entry checking, but you can
also
limit the number of fields (if the archaeological spreadsheets I have often
seen are any indication) by better defining the way in which you handle the
storage of information.
Both MS Access and Filemaker Pro support user permissions controls for
multiple levels of access, as I understand it, though I have never employed
this on my databases (they already sit behind password-protected servers).
This can be useful if you want to maintain the physical security of data
(avoid accidental deletion).
For agency folks who can afford it, at the Forest Service we have an
excellent, integrated, Oracle database. It allows us to manage an
incredible
amount of data, with a lot of controls on access and editing priveleges.
But
I suspect this is beyond the means of many people, and is more powerful
than
most people need.
-Max Dean
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:30:00 -0600
From: David Parkhill <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Relational Database
I use Filemaker Pro to develop and print Key Site Cards at my work. It =
is relative simple to change specific fields, search, and enter data. I =
certainly would support its use in developing data bases. It does take =
some thinking when developing your data base and setting up specific =
data searches. It has a bibliography, spell check etc. with the ability =
to add new words. You can change fonts and script size. It is really a =
powerful program with many bells and whistles.
David Parkhill
"SOCIALISM FAILS WHEN IT RUNS OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY"
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the =
government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:33:47 +0100
From: geoff carver <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: help with razors and dressing combs
belittling? more like a request for more precision; it's an interesting but
rather large topic to cover, isn't it? i mean: we could start with HRAF,
look at depicetions of hairstyles in everything from Classical friezes to
totemic figures to Bronze Age bog bodies
-----Original Message-----
" Meaning what, exactly? ..."
This sort of response is exactly what discourages new posters to the list.
There is no need to belittle someone, whatever your opinion is regarding
their message.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:49:39 +0100
From: geoff carver <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Relational Databases
There are some drawbacks with Access: like most MS-stuff, it tends to be
pretty user-friendly, which means it takes some of the power out of what
you
can do with it; largely there are compatibility issues, sometimes between
various versions of Access itself, or between Access & other applications
(GIS, or spreadsheets, for example) that you might want to think about.
There are also limits on how many relations you can store (something around
500,000, as I remember, which sounds like a lot until you hit that limit
and
then scramble a way to export your data into some new DB). Similarly, one
of
the projects I might soon be working on will deal with the problem that an
old Filemaker system will have to be overhauled & mounted on something much
more robust. I don't know what the limits are on Open Office's "Base" but
it
does have the advantage of being "open," meaning people can write code for
you, relatively easily, if you need to make changes.
Whatever you do, though, it's always best to really plan out your design:
look what you need, what you might eventually want your DB to do, and then
figure that in a year or two you will want to do a whole lot more so it
will
have to be flexible. Get a decent book ("Designing Relational Database
Systems" by Rebecca Riordan is a good start).
-----Original Message-----
From a purely data management point of view, I have thoroughly enjoyed
developing databases using Filemaker Pro and MS Access.
-----
EAT THE RICH!
Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:01:34 -0700
From: George Myers <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: help with razors and dressing combs
What came to mind was in Anthropology 101, team taught by W. Arens and
David
Hicks at Stony Brook University. In a book of readings, "The
Anthropological
Perspective" a "Xerox Individualized Publishing Program" is "Magical Hair"
a "Curl
Bequest Prize Essay, 1957" by E.R. Leach from the "Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, Vol. 88 July/December 1958, Part II, pp.
147-164."
Reprinted by permission from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain
and Ireland, on pp. 82-97.
The final article in "The Anthropological Perspective" is the some-what
famous
"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner, from: American
Anthropologist,
Vol. 58, 1956, pp. 503-507. Spoiler: Nacirema spelled backwards, does not
say
"Paul is dead".
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:32:20 -0500
From: H Henderson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Relational Database
=20
BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }
Histarchers,=20
Does anyone out there use Paradox for their database work?=20
Season's greetings to all,=20
Heather Henderson=20
On Tue 22/12/09 1:30 PM , David Parkhill [log in to unmask] sent:
I use Filemaker Pro to develop and print Key Site Cards at my work.
It is relative simple to change specific fields, search, and enter
data. I certainly would support its use in developing data bases. It
does take some thinking when developing your data base and setting up
specific data searches. It has a bibliography, spell check etc. with
the ability to add new words. You can change fonts and script size. It
is really a powerful program with many bells and whistles.=20
David Parkhill=20
"SOCIALISM FAILS WHEN IT RUNS OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY"=20
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the
government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson=20
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:55:17 +0100
From: geoff carver <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Relational Database
Actually haven't heard about paradox for quite a while, just had to check
Wikipedia to see what they've been up to; seems they're owned by corel & a
few are still loyal but...
The other benefit to open office: it runs on all systems: linux, windows,
Mac...
-----Original Message-----
Does anyone out there use Paradox for their database work?
------------------------------
End of HISTARCH Digest - 21 Dec 2009 to 22 Dec 2009 (#2009-283)
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