Making archaeological research more useful to the public

[Wendy Frederick]

I think we all have great ideas to incorporate global research and would like the public to understand these goals in greater scope. I think archaeologists and researchers have great ideas but we can get lost in translation. Opening up our research goals to fulfill a greater range of goals would be useful to incorporate our ideas. Exactly how to do this will take great thought but no discipline is an island, we need to work together and share our ideas.

[Peter Matthews]

Dear Wendy,

Perhaps another way of saying this is to suggest that local research can have a global audience, but for this to happen, translations are needed not just between different languages, but also between different styles of writing and different kinds of publishing.

This can also be said for many areas of research, which is one reason I have included forums for 'Agent offers' and 'Agent requests' within the Research Cooperative. There is a need for people who have the ability and inclination to help mediate connections (e.g. as information brokers) between researchers, science writers, translators, editors and publishers.

For subjects that have a large public following (like medicine and archaeology) there may be good opportunities to earn a living as an agent or operator of an agency.

My hope is that the pool of member offers, requests, and profiles within the Research Cooperative will become a large information resource that members can begin to use to in order to mediate or highlight potentially good connections between members - without intruding too much on the members concerned.

How such work could be managed in an appropriate manner is bridge we can cross we when come to it. All suggestions are welcome!

Best regards, Peter