Open Access

I'm a fan of Open Access, I understand it has some limitations in terms of implementation but I honestly think that when you are doing archaeology (or any research) and you want to make it relevant to the communities that you are working with/around then its important that you make your research available to them.  As someone who wants to do community archaeology I think that open access is extremely important to the research process.  Open access will allow the people we work with to read and comment on the papers I write for the broader archaeological community.

Anyone interested in the arguments for open access should check out the PhD Comics Video on it via Youtube.

Hopefully, when I start getting publishable data from Nuttallburg I'll be able to publish it as Open Access material so that its available, for free, to those who do not have academic affiliations.  I remember, as an undergraduate I went to a school that didn't have full access to every database.  There were a lot of times, I was hindered by this as many of the archaeological journals were the ones that my school didn't have access to.  If I can make my work open access, I will because that was a real problem for me.  However, right now open access carries a fee between 1000 and 5000 dollars if you decide to publish in a journal that is not specifically public access.  If that's the case in a couple of years, and I cannot find an affordable open access solution then I'll have to look into that idea at the end of the Youtube video - making my paper's text available for download online.

But, this is all a bit premature, I don't have publishable data yet and won't be publishing for about another year at the very least (probably longer).

So, Basically....

I'm an archaeology graduate student pursuing doctoral studies at Indiana University.  I'm hoping to use the knowledge gained and resources available to me here in Indiana to facilitate the investigation of an "abandoned" coal mine owned by the National Park Service named Nuttallburg.

This is basically a public place for me to type, to share my thoughts and queries on the past and to provide a public forum for people to comment on what I'm doing with my research in the field.  Right now the name of the blog is "Nuttallburg" but that could change in the future - but for now I'm happy with the name because that's where I'm planning to keep my research.

I want to orient my research from a community based approach, making my thoughts and musings on it public, are the first step in this so that everyone can know where I'm coming from when I talk about the site.

Kobalt Trowels

I know for a fact that most of my peers prefer Marshalltown trowels.  These are great trowels for archaeology - strong and durable because they are forged out of a single piece of steel.  The Marshalltown is legendery in archaeology and pretty much the only option for most archaeologists - heck, Kent Flannery even mentions them in the title of his "Parable of the Golden Marshall Town."

My problem - as a graduate student on a budget - is why not use a more common trowel.  I have to mail order Marshalltowns, and before shipping they are already $15.  Now, this may seem somewhat whiney, but I think that's entirely too much to pay per-trowel if I'm going to be offering a public field experience (and providing trowels to volunteers). 

Kobalt Trowels (available at EVERY Lowe's Store) are another matter.  While Marshalltown really makes only the best trowels, I can tell by just looking at the different options that Lowe's offers a wider variety of quality (or lack thereof).  But there are a couple trowels, about $9 a piece that have attracted my attention. Like the Marshalltown, they are made out of a single piece of forged steel.  The only real difference in material is the plastic/wooden handle on the Kobalt compared to the Marshalltown's wooden handle. 

I bought one of the square 5' margin trowels to test in the field.  Maybe it'll work, maybe I'll like its feel/balance while I'm in the field.  Really, all I care about is that it doesn't fall apart easily.  Even if it does, it's a Kobalt tool so, I'm not overly worried.  If it breaks, I can take it back to Lowe's and exchange it because like all of their hand tools this trowel came with an unconditional lifetime warranty - a lot like the ones sold with Craftsmen tools at Sears.  I've had family use it before, and apparently the procedure is rather painless so even if the trowel does ever break, I can take it back to one of the many ubiquitous Lowe's stores across the country and just get a new one. 

Anyone else have thoughts on the idea of using Kobalt trowels in the field?