The SAA’s annual conference is fast aproaching! For those DDIG members headed to Austin, I’ve compiled a small list of events with a digital focus.

Digital Data Interest Group Meeting (Thursday, April 26: 6-7 PM)
Please remember to go to this important meeting! This will be the first time we have a real chance to chart a course of action. Since the formation of the group, DDIG has achieved a number of milestones. It now has a membership of 613 people, indicating a great deal of interest in digital communications among the SAA community.

As a further indication of the widespread interest in DDIG’s area of focus, there will be a host of sessions, roundtables, and other events at the SAA’s annual conference in Austin with a thematic emphasis on digital data. This year’s conference events related to DDIG subject areas include:


General Sessions and Symposia:

· Diversifying Archaeology’s Impact Through New Forms of Public Engagement: Current Happenings in Public Archaeology (Friday, April 27: 8AM – 11AM)

· The Digital Excavation, Part I: Approaches to Recording, Repository And Publication Excavation and Web Applications Part 2: Real Time Link Between Recording and Publication: Digital Archaeology at Ancient Urkesh (Saturday, April 28: 8 AM – 12 PM)

· New Knowledge from Old Sites: The Value of Revisiting Sites and their Collections (Sunday, April 29: 8 AM – 12 PM)

· Delving Deeper into Subsistence: Integrating Plant and Animal Data
(Sunday, April 29: 8 AM – 12 PM)

· GIS and Remote Sensing Technologies in Historical Archaeology
(Saturday, April 28: 8 AM – 12 PM)


Round Tables:

· Share, Remix, Reuse: Making the most of Digital Archaeology
(Friday, April 27: 12 – 1 PM)

· GIS and Archaeology (Friday, April 27: 12 – 1 PM)


Poster Sessions:

· GIS and Mapping in Archaeology (Thursday, April 26: 8-11 AM)

Open Archaeology Reception:
With its focus on digital data, DDIG explores the dynamic and rapidly changing world of scholarly communication. Scholarly communication is in the midst of an important transition toward increased openness, access, scope and diversity. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) recently called upon university counsels, boards of trustees, and provosts “to provide aggressive support for the principles of fair use and open access, and to promote awareness and use of Creative Commons licenses.”

My home organization (the Alexandria Archive Institute) recently won some funding to host an event that will help acquaint archaeologists with the changing world of scholarly communication. We will host an “Open Archaeology Reception” on April 27 (7-8pm, at the conference hotel). The event will provide some free sushi and information about resources and incentives for open scholarship. We will also an Open Archaeology Prize, aimed at encouraging free and open publication of high-quality archaeological datasets.

(Edited on March 9, 2007 thanks to comments from Donna Byczkiewicz)