Transitioning from Data Storage to Data Curation: The Challenges Facing an Archaeological Institution

Each archaeological project generates substantial amounts of data from season to season, all of which need to be collected, analyzed, organized, and stored. After an archaeological project or season ends and all the accessioning-related and analytical activities are completed, all those arti-facts are stored away in shelves, boxes and crates, and the associated archaeological data will be stored as digital files and in file folders. There are two critical questions in a time of downsized organizations and shrinking budgets: How can the archaeological data and related scientific in-formation pertaining to each of these archaeological projects be preserved and made available to other researchers? How do we make sure that future generations are able to access these infor-mation resources? I ask these questions as a relative newcomer to archaeology. This paper is a quest to understand how archaeological institutions can transition from an individually curated, per project/per season information gathering and data storage approach to a centralized information resource manage-ment approach known as archaeological data curation. Specifically, this paper will look at the challenges that an archaeological institution would face as it attempts to shift from narrowly-focused, project-related data storage to a broader and long-term focus on the management of the archaeological information resources of the entire institution