Archaeological Profession Pulls Together in Face of Recession
Or not. I’ve been watching the comments going up on one of the BAJR’s forum threads (most of it is here) with interest. Like a lot of people I’ve been a critic of the IFA but I was impressed they got the recession seminar up and running quickly. Looks like people are frustrated that minutes or some other formal print-up of the session haven’t been published, but I think a lot of the anger is probably more to do with the general panic that’s setting in across archaeology.
Unit staff are being laid off due to lack of projects or funding for excavations, and local government staff aren’t in any better shape as councils are put under pressure from Whitehall to cut spending and a lack of understanding means the Heritage core suffers first. In this climate a bit of bitching is probably good to let off steam and stop us all from contemplating our impending redundancies too closely (yours truly included), so hopefully no one will get too offended.
However, the essential point remains valid. It would be good to see some formal minutes from the seminar, not least because the short notice meant a lot of people couldn’t attend, and the cost for non-IFA members (£30) was not particularly encouraging. But then, a small cynical part of me wonders whether they will put up minutes (if they thought to take them) to be freely downloaded if most of the people interested in them aren’t IFA members?
Ruth Fillery-Travis 