Dissemination
Introduction
While most historic environment work considered in this manual is development-led the results of such work may be of value to a wider audience than the parties professionally involved. To achieve this, results of historic environment work must enter the public domain as part of the planning condition.
Background
Historic environment professionals (contracting archaeologists) should bear in mind that there is a requirement to report the findings of a historic environment project beyond the normal planning audience. This may range from the publicising of a small project amongst the local public to mass media publicity for finds of national interest.
The report
Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record
Each county or unitary authority in England has a Historic Environment Record (HER or Sites and Monuments Record (SMR). The Lincolnshire HER is held and maintained by our Historic Places Team (see Appendix 7 for the address). The information held within the HER forms the basis for the appraisal of historic environment needs within the planning process by both county and district historic environment staff. It is essential that the database is continually updated to ensure adequate historic environment management responses to development issues. The HER is a public resource and is available for consultation to all those with an interest in studying the past or managing the heritage. Copies of all reports, interim and final, should be lodged with the county HER. The needs of commercial confidentiality may apply at a pre-application stage and can be accommodated but should be arranged at the time of deposition. Reports that are deposited as confidential will normally be released into the public domain after six months. All reports produced to support a formal planning application or are used to discharge a planning condition will be in the public domain.
Local Archaeological Journal
The journal Lincolnshire History and Archaeology is the main organ for the publishing of the results of historic and archaeological work in Lincolnshire.
OASIS
- The OASIS project (On-line Access to the Index of Archaeological Investigations) brings together a number of strategic partners, including: the Archaeology Data Service and Historic England under the umbrella of the University of York.
- The planning archaeologists in Lincolnshire have, as a group, made a decision to adopt OASIS and ask for OASIS forms to be completed as part of the planning process. The requirement to complete OASIS forms on-line should be included in all briefs and acknowledged in all specifications in Lincolnshire.
- The contractor should provide a copy of the completed project summary page from the OASIS record. This should either be bound into the grey literature report as an appendix or attached to any covering letter that is sent to the planning archaeologist.
- The overall aim of the OASIS project is to provide an online index to the mass of archaeological grey literature that has been produced as a result of the advent of large-scale developer-funded fieldwork. The OASIS data capture form has been designed to help in the flow of information from data producers, such as contracting units, through to local and national data managers, such as SMRs, HERs and the NMR. In Lincolnshire the resulting information will be validated by the planning archaeologists and/or the relevant records officers at Lincoln City Heritage Database, North Lincolnshire HER, North-East Lincolnshire HER, the Lincolnshire HER and the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire, and passed onto the ADS for inclusion in its online catalogue ArchSearch. A unique OASIS record should be created and completed for each separate report or phase of archaeological work. Digital copies of the project report should, wherever possible, be attached to their associated OASIS record, so that they can be added to the Archaeology Data Service's online Grey Literature Library, for wider public dissemination.
- Since the completion of an OASIS form will effectively place a synopsis of the results of archaeological work in the public domain, the Lincolnshire planning archaeologists will no longer require contractors to report the findings of an archaeological project in the local archaeological journal as a brief listing, or as a longer note, on a piece of fieldwork. However, it is expected that full reports of large-scale fieldwork will still be needed, such as those that appear in Lincolnshire History and Archaeology and in national journals from time to time.