ARKDIS in the Netherlands

Visiting the Keys to Rome exhibition
at the Allard Pearson Museum.

For about a month ago, ARKDIS project was visiting colleagues in the Netherlands during a five day study trip to Amsterdam, Leiden and the Hague. The trip gave us a good idea of some of the current state-of-the-art in Dutch archaeology, archaeological presentation and information management.

At Allard Pearson Museum of the University of Amsterdam we were hosted by Dr. Wim Hupperetz who took us around at the museum and introduced us to their work on ArchaeoHotspots, a room where archaeologists and volunteers actually do archaeological research and work with finds in the museum, and where the public can come, watch and discuss.

At DANS, the Data archive and networking services, the Dutch data archive that preserves digital archaeological research data in the Hague, Hella Hollander and her colleagues presented their work and current state of the affairs in the archaeological information management in the Netherlands. In comparison to many other countries, including Sweden, the clear mandate of an organisation with a similarly clear focus on archaeological research for both preserving and making available digital archaeological data is an apparent advantage in the Netherlands.

At Europeana in the Hague, Joris Pekel hosted us and gave us a good overview of their work and highlighted the new strategy to focus on quality and partnership-based content production instead of attempting to incorporate as large quantities of content as possible.

We visited also the Faculty of Archaeology (yes, a faculty not a department) in Leiden and discussed with Dr. Hans Kamermans on education and research and the Vrije universiteit Amsterdam where Dr. Philip Verhagen and his colleagues presented their research and we had an opportunity to give a glimpse of the on-going work in ARKDIS. As a final stop, we visited the e-humanities unit of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences where Prof. Sally Wyatt hosted us and told about the e-humanities work in the country. We had also an opportunity to participate their weekly seminar, this time with a guest preseentation of Joseph Tennis from the University of Washington iSchool.

In addition to the common programme, all of us had an opportunity for additional visits to museums and