1st August 2010, 01:40 PM
Quote:To insist that contractors are there just to do what their clients pay them to do is, I am sorry to say, an extremely sad indictment of how fragmented the archaeological profession has become over the last 20 years or so.
No. If you're a purely private contractor operating as a BUSINESS, then yes, that is all that you, all you have ever done and all you ever should do. This might not, however, stop you trying to convince your clients of the value of good outreach, but fundamentally, the quality of your work is pretty tightly monitored against the standards set by the LPA, and you can have no ethical quibbles about meeting the 'minimum' standards laid out. These are, after all, set out to achieve a level playing field. Even if you get in before them, the curator's still got to OK the finished work, and if they want outreach, they can demand it through a specification or brief (and often do). Dinosaur wasn't patronising, nor even being particularly hard-nosed, just being clear about what he/she does.
If, however, you are an EDUCATIONAL CHARITY or a publicly funded local authority unit, whose stated purpose is to engage the public with their heritage, then surely not, you SHOULD bed doing so much more to justify that status and it's (dubious) advantages. My query is that if you are a unit based in an educational charity, and all you can say in public about how you serve your charitable purpose is, and I quote...
"...we must deliver a public benefit which is widely available... [removed for AUP purposes] meets this objective by disseminating the results of our investigations at little or no cost. Our formal published reports are easily available through public lending libraries whilst a large number of our typescript reports, produced mostly in support of planning applications, are increasingly available as pdf downloads at the OASIS website. These publications are mostly designed for the research end of the educational spectrum, but we also believe it important that we communicate our work to a wide range of non-specialists as well, including people with a casual interest in history and archaeology. To this end we undertake numerous talks and other events connected to our projects."
How exactly does that differentiate your esteemed charitable purpose from mine and Dinosaur's grubby profiteering? :face-thinks:
So they publish stuff that libraries buy, they write HER reports and upload them to OASIS. And do a few talks and events. I've seen all of these insisted on by curators (and indeed clients), and done (very well indeed) by all shades of the profession, even units with reputations for extreme flakiness, penny pinching and dubious business practices. Very tempted to name them but I think that Hostie would spot the back hand in the compliment. I'm sure they do more, but I'd love to know what...
Now I've managed to agree with Dinosaur and Uof1 in the same post. I feel quite giddy. Time for a lie down.