The blog is here. The blog’s title is Archaeology, Museums and Public Outreach.

The blogger is Robert Connolly, Director of the C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa in Memphis, Tennessee.

And, on February 8th, 2010, he gave thesga.org and the ArchaeoBus a rave review. His comments include many links to pages throughout the website. In part, he writes:

My favorite unique contribution on the SGA website is the Weekly Ponder column. Now in its second year, the column provides updates on archaeological site excavations, preservation issues, discusses the veracity of historic documents, and current trends in archaeology, to name but a few of the topics covered.

He continues:

The SGA website is an excellent “one-stop-shopping” site for bringing archaeology to the public in Georgia.

Thank you Mr. Connolly! Thoughtful blogs like yours are a welcome addition to the blogosphere!

The Weekly Ponder begins its second year of publication this week! The very first Weekly Ponder was posted on 26 January 2009.

We initiated the Weekly Ponder to guarantee a frequent posting of new material on the Society for Georgia Archaeology’s website. We felt that providing new stories was a key to making thesga.org a robust website that would further the Society’s mission and goals, as well as—we very much hoped—help attract members to the Society.

We wanted the Weekly Ponder to be not just words, but to have a picture, too. We thought that would add to its appeal. Indeed, we originally thought the topics addressed in Weekly Ponder stories would have a geographic focus on Georgia. However, we didn’t always have materials, especially photographs, to do that.

At present, the Weekly Ponder addresses issues regarding archaeology from around the globe, and seeks to offer an idea or information worth pondering each week.

All members of the SGA are invited to submit stories for posting to the Weekly Ponder. Please send your contributions to Editor Sammy Smith by clicking here.

Two issues loom large in the future of The Profile, and both of them require input from the SGA membership. The first pertains to the publication format for the newsletter and/or its contents. As you all know, the SGA Board recently decided to switch to an electronic, web-based publication format in an effort to cut costs and gain some flexibility with regard to the length and content of the publication. The costs of mailing The Profile had increased, and it was decided that accessing the newsletter electronically would be convenient for most of the membership, and allow more of the SGA’s resources to be devoted to activities that we all support. As additional feedback on this decision has been received, there has been further discussion about the printed versus electronic format question, and whether an electronic publication simply duplicates content that could otherwise be posted to the website in various subject areas. The SGA Board seeks your opinion on these matters. First, what are your thoughts on the question of a printed versus electronically published newsletter. If you are comfortable with the idea of an electronically published version but have suggestions now that you have seen how the first issue (Summer 2009) was presented versus the format of the current issue, your feedback is welcome. Finally, if SGA is to use its website as the platform for disseminating information about its happenings and archaeology in Georgia generally, do you believe there is still a place for The Profile as a coherent publication, or do you think it makes sense to simply offer the content that otherwise would have been in The Profile in various parts of the website where relevant? Please contact President Dennis Blanton with your thoughts and recommendations.

The second issue concerning The Profile pertains to me, your editor. Although it has been a pleasure editing, assembling, and printing The Profile over the last three years, I am ready to step down and give someone else the opportunity to immerse themselves in the current affairs of Georgia archaeology. If you are interested in stepping into this role or know someone you think would be a good candidate, please contact me. I will be continuing as editor until SGA finds my replacement and I will provide all needed support in the transition. I look forward to seeing the fresh perspective the new editor will bring!

Since our initial implementation of the revamped website early this year, we’ve continued to add stories and make sure the new material can be found. We continue to work toward making our Society’s website useful and informative to students, educators, researchers, and those with an interest in our human past.

Now that there’s substantial material on the website, we’ve given you three ways to find material of interest to you. In short, they are 1) a hierarchical listing conforming to a “site map” (not the archaeological kind!); 2) a search box, where you can enter any word, phrase, or even number you are interested in; and 3) a tag cloud. You can see all three on the right-hand side of all pages of our SGA website. At the top is the hierarchical listing, then the tag cloud, and at the bottom, the search box.

The most obvious way to find stories on the website is to use the hierarchy listed vertically on the right, atop the sage green bar. Everything on the website is linked to at least one of these categories or subcategories. These categories are topical to the Society and the website, including, for example, calendar, ArchaeoBus, Archaeology Month, Publications, and Chapters, as well as SGA’s inner workings, such as the Endowment Fund, our bylaws, our vision and mission, and the like. Expect these to be expanded somewhat in the near future, as the ArchaeoBus team produces more materials and stories.

View of web page, scrolled down to show all three zones on the sage green “navigation” bar.

You may also have noticed that we implemented a search box, shown at the bottom of the sage green bar on the right, far below the hierarchy. You can type any topic or word of interest in this box, including phrases and numbers. For example, if you were interested in primitive technology, you could type in that phrase, or “knapping.” That would produce a list of the stories or entries in which that word or words were used. The listing will be newest to oldest, with the most recent story at the top.

We have very recently implemented a third way to find stories of interest: tags. On this website, tags are words or phrases that cross-cut the hierarchical listing. Not every story has been tagged, because some are “housekeeping” stories and out-of-date, for example, notices of upcoming meetings and the like. Instead, the tags focus on topics likely to be useful to those interested in the archaeology of Georgia rather than the Society itself. After all, the latter is well-delineated in the hierarchical listing. Thus, the tags focus on archaeological topics and content that researchers may be interested in.

Look between the hierarchical listing and the search box for the tag cloud, entitled “Tags.” All those words and phrases jumbled together into a single list are the tags currently used on this website. The tags are presented in what is called a tag cloud, because the shape resembles the blobby shape of a cumulus cloud (the stylized kind you see in a coloring book). Tag clouds are a specific type of word cloud. Word clouds are generated from any set of words (e.g., the Declaration of Independence, this article, the Bible), whereas tag clouds are special word clouds generated from just those words used as tags.

Word clouds are a visual representation of the frequency of words and phrases within a given text (can range from a sentence to a webpage, etc.). The relative size of the font of the words indicates how frequently they are used in the given text. The larger-size tags in the cloud on our website have been used more frequently. As time goes on, and more stories are published, and therefore are tagged, the shape and size of the tag cloud on our website will change.

So, our website’s tags use what words and phrases? At present, they include rough time periods (e.g., Paleoindian, Woodland, Postbellum, Twentieth century), a few general artifact types (e.g., lithics, glass, nails), a few places (e.g., Fort Daniel, Etowah, Kolomoki), and other topics of interest like stewardship and outreach, excavation and survey.

The list of tags is not exhaustive, so remember you can also use the search box above the tag cloud to find stories relevant to your interests.

NOTE: Should you be interested in making a word cloud, you can visit this Wordle page and create your own. Here’s a Wordle-generated word cloud for this story that uses multiple colors, allows some words to be portrayed vertically, has rounded corners, and discards common words like “and” and “the.”

THE PROFILE IS COMING! THE PROFILE IS COMING!

Larissa Thomas, editor of The Profile, is working on the newest issue, which will appear here on this website when finished. We’ve had a few technological wrinkles that are slowing the process down…but stay tuned! We are confident we’ll triumph!

As your editor, it is my pleasure to announce that starting with the next issue, The Profile will be published exclusively in electronic format. The SGA Board made this decision at its recent retreat in an effort to cut costs. For you, the reader, the benefit will be having a full-color publication with no page limit, while more of your membership dollars will go to a range of activities in support of archaeology in Georgia. The electronic version of The Profile will be posted on the revamped SGA website. You will receive an email when the new issue is available with a link to the electronic Profile. The content of The Profile will be accessible as individual articles that you can read online (saving a few trees), but the website will also give you the option of printing the full issue if you choose.

Let me refer you to Sammy Smith’s article about the new website here. To ensure a smooth transition to electronic distribution, please be sure that the SGA Secretary, Tom Gresham, has your current email address. He can be reached via email at sgasecretary@thesga.org.

I look forward to The Profile’s bold stride into the digital age! If you have any questions or concerns about the transition, please feel free to contact me at (770) 270-1192 ext. 118, during business hours.

The SGA’s website committee—that is: Michael Shirk, Kevin Kiernan, and Sammy Smith—has been hard at work developing a new website for the Society. Actually, the three of us have been working on content and ideas for the structure of the site. Most of the technological heavy lifting has been done for the SGA on a generous pro-bono basis, by JC Burns of jcbD. View the fruit of our labors at thesga.org.

Technical background

JC suggested we think about the website as the sum of three distinct components: content (that is, the stuff we SGA members generate: words, pictures, downloads), structure (how the parts of the website link together), and design (the colors, fonts, the template of the look of the site, aka the theme). Our goal is to maximize the time SGA volunteers can spend on content, and minimize the amount of time we have to allocate to design and structure—in a perfect world, anyway! JC created the design, and we worked with him, with input from the Board and Officers, to build the structure of the website—that is, how the individual chunks of content relate to the website as a whole.

The SGA website is now dynamically generated from a database—what web developers call a Content Management System (CMS), which gives us a simple and plain window for entering the content, and the software automatically formats the materials according to a standardized plan that is implemented separately (aka the “theme”). This software meets current web-design standards, and will serve the Society well as we move increasingly into the cloud. The term “the cloud” is a metaphor for the internet, so SGA is in the cloud now that we provide virtualized resources (e.g., stories from The Profile, photographs from our meetings) over the internet. Some people consider the cloud to be the ultimate form of globalization. Using the cloud allows the SGA to reduce capital expenditures, improve outreach (e.g., as ArchaeoBus activities expand), and add detail to the information we offer about archaeology in Georgia.

What’s on the website now

The new look of the website is mostly that—a new look to materials you have seen on the previous incarnation of our website, developed and maintained over many years by Mike Shirk—a tip o’ the hat for all your work over these many years, and a big thanks, Mike!

What the CMS gives us is a way for the materials on our website to be accessed dynamically–that is, when you call for it with your browser. For example, you can get to a particular article that Scott Jones wrote on beveled points and Edgefield scrapers via the listing for the Fall 2008 issue of The Profile, which is when it was published, but also by clicking on “Artifact information” under “Georgia archaeology resources.”

By the way, articles that are still timely from recent issues of The Profile are now posted as separate chunks of content, and older articles that report on archaeological research are also being posted to the website as time permits. The goal is for our SGA website to become a substantive resource for those researching both broad questions and detailed information about Georgia’s human past.

New features

You might enjoy several of the website’s new features. We have implemented a search option that is quite handy. Any word in any story can be searched for; this is a powerful new tool for searching the increased content we will make available on the website.

Regular visitors to thesga.org will discover the “Weekly Ponder.” Each Ponder, posted Friday mornings at 5 AM, will provide as fresh look at any topic pertinent to Georgia’s past and the practice of archaeology in Georgia. Ponders are brief stories, accompanied by a picture. Keep your eyes peeled for each new Ponder, and submit one yourself!

We’ve also incorporated a glossary, based on an article from the 2001 Early Georgia, “Resources at Risk,” which is a primer on Georgia archaeology.

You’ll also find a calendar of events that is robust and useful— please send in Chapter meeting notices and other activities, so they can be included!

Indeed, each Chapter has its own area of the website, although now the content is mostly from older issues of The Profile. Your submissions can change this!

Using a simple utility that generates maps based on latitude and longitude, you will find map information linked to applicable stories. This includes meetings! If you click on one of these maps, you will go to a navigable version on a Google Map page. It’s even easier and handier than it sounds!

We have added more goodies to the website-check it out yourself and see what you like! Please realize that this is not a finished or static website. What we now have will be augmented regularly, as SGA becomes increasingly “in the cloud.” (What a contrast to being “in the dirt,” where we archaeology types often dream about spending our time!)

The Board has voted to shift to distributing The Profile using the internet, for various reasons (see article here). We will still have quarterly “issues” of The Profile (meaning a collection of articles and reports, news and information), and, from now on you will find the articles from each new issue posted to our website. We will also post news between issues of The Profile.

Looking forward

Of the three components of our website, the design and structure are now pretty much nailed down (although they can be changed should that become appropriate). We already have added some of the content that forms the backbone of the website. We anticipate adding more content going forward, and also beefing up our older, archived materials as time and energy permit.

We also hope to incorporate new materials. As the ArchaeoBus programs are refined, we plan to add those materials on the website, and use the power of the CMS software to allow us to repurpose materials developed for educational outreach via ArchaeoBus programs for distribution via our website. We also hope to branch out in new directions—maybe we’ll soon have an SGA store!

The complete archive of online news on various topics in archaeology is here, listed in reverse order of publication on this website. If, instead, you are interested in an archive of notices about the business of the Society (e.g., preparations for meetings), click here.