IATH takes scholarship into the
21st century
By Jon Bowen, A&S Online, September 2003
IATH began in 1992 with a grant from IBM and a multi-year commitment of support from the University. The Institute -- which celebrates its 10 th anniversary in September with a scholarly symposium that will be open to the public -- now draws support from multiple corporations, foundations and individuals who contribute to projects.
The result is a multi-disciplinary forum that carries Thomas Jefferson's educational ideals into the Digital Age. Researchers in the arts and humanities are able to take advantage of sophisticated technical support and advanced computer technology to collaborate on projects that push the frontiers of scholarship.
Every year, the Institute awards one or more two-year fellowships. The fellowships are open to U.Va. professors as well as others in the academic community. Once fellows come on board with IATH, they have ready access to the staff of programmers, web designers and IT specialists on the Institute's staff.
One of IATH's newest additions is Stephen E. Plog, Commonwealth Professor of Anthropology at U.Va., who joins the Institute's roster of fellows this fall. With support from the Mellon Foundation, Plog will be collaborating with colleagues around the country on the creation of the Chaco Digital Research Archive.
Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico, was home to prehistoric Pueblo Indians from A.D. 850 to 1150. The new archive will be built upon a relational database of architectural data from Chaco, complete with notes and drawings from field work in the region.
Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico, was home to prehistoric Pueblo Indians from A.D. 850 to 1150. The new archive will be built upon a relational database of architectural data from Chaco, complete with notes and drawings from field work in the region.
"The latter issue is particularly critical," Plog said, "because the Chaco data we'll be working with are now stored at several different institutions scattered around the country. A scholar interested in working with these data is faced with the expense of traveling to multiple locations. The archive will hopefully allow interested scholars to sit at their computers and work with all of the data, now linked electronically in a way that allows quick searches and queries."
But that's not all. Work on the Chaco archive could become a model for archaeological scholarship in the 21 st century.
"If we can generalize these archive models," Plog said, "we can transform the way that all archaeological data are collected and stored. This in turn could revolutionize the discipline by allowing tremendous increases in the types of information available and in the ease of examining relations among types of data through the use of relational databases."
Plog and his colleagues working on the Chaco project have a vision for the new archive, but they'll rely on IATH's technical experts to make their vision a reality.
"The group of archaeologists working on the project has the expertise to conceptualize what the archive should be," Plog said. "But we lack the knowledge and skills to move from that conceptualization. Our collaboration with the outstanding group at IATH will allow us to integrate the archaeological model with a digital conceptualization to develop the structure of the archive."