As part of my contract I have to spend two years abroad in placement on academic institutions. When designing the project, University College London was one of the main options. Why? Not only because Chiara Bonacchi is here and she is part of it, but also because of its library. Ten years ago I did my MA in Public Archaeology here and the depth of the collections was overwhelming. Here you have access to almost everything you need in the field of Public Archaeology and if I wanted to delve into a good bibliograpy this was the place to come.
So, it is time to know a little bit more about the project and its objectives.
In the design of the project, one of the products scheduled was a bibliography about Public Archaeology in the Mediterranean context. Although within what we consider Public Archaeology there is still a manageable number of works, if we broaden the scope to the general topics of interest in the discipline (economy, politics, culture, media…), the numbers raise by hundreds. This will be a problem, and I am sure the bibliography will never be fully complete, but I felt the need to offer an open resource for other colleagues that sometimes struggle to find references on the topic and need guidance.
During the first weeks of design I decided to build a very simple database of reference from where I can export the information in a clear way of reference and soon, within the ‘resources’ tag you will be able to find some. Meanwhile, this means I have to spend hours and hours in the library searching for resurces, reading, pulling the thread to new resources and starting again. By the end of my placement in London I will try to offer this data, so it is not only me who has it. This will also help to realise all the references I forgot to add or just did not have time to, and this is why I am open to add any new references.
This work is not the first in the field and right now maybe Kate Ellenberger’s attempt is the best to account for. However, her approach focuses on the North American perspective and mostly studies in this side of the Atlantic Ocean, so I needed to build on it (or next to it, really) and try my own.
I really hope this becomes of interest for you and if you have any doubt, do not hesitate to contact at any time.