The close involvement of Michael Rains with the Silchester project at Reading University has continued, and he was appointed an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at Reading in August 2005. Work has continued on the JISC funded project to develop a framework for a virtual research environment (VRE) for archaeology using the Silchester project as an exemplar. This project began in late 2004 and will continue until the end of 2006. Building on the existing Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB), the project aims to improve information flow throughout all aspects of the excavation and post-excavation work at Silchester by, for example, the innovative use of handheld computers operating in a wireless network for direct on-site data capture, and the development of facilities within the IADB for the creation of virtual research domains and personal work spaces to improve the post-excavation research environment. In late 2005 the Silchester project was also awarded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding through the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) and Internet Archaeology LEAP (Linking Electronic Archives and Publications) programme to develop an exemplar of how electronic publication on the Internet can provide broad access to research findings in the arts and humanities.

Work has also continued with the Butrint Project, funded through the Butrint Foundation and based at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. As well as using the IADB to record, research and eventually publish the present day large-scale excavations at Butrint in southern Albania, this project will also use the IADB as a framework for the digitization of the rich documentary archive of over 100 years of archaeology at Butrint. Michael Rains spent a week at Butrint in June 2005 to assist with the setting up of a local network and the training of UK and Albanian field staff.

In early 2006, the IADB was adopted by Cotswold Archaeology, based in Kemble, Gloucestershire, as the recording solution for their many field projects.

Back in York, Jon Brownridge has continued to cope splendidly with the day-to-day issues involved in maintaining and supporting an ever-increasing number of users and uses of our very limited IT infrastructure. In particular, the continued rapid growth in the use of email has presented us with some of the same challenges being faced by most organisations, large and small.

At the end of the year, Michael Rains delivered a presentation about the IADB to the Institute of Field Archaeologists (IFA) annual meeting in Edinburgh, and a progress report on the JISC VRE project to the 34th annual CAA conference in Fargo, North Dakota.

Excavation records continued to be deposited and recorded on the Trust’s Archive Gazetteer. Much of the year was spent sorting and reorganising material in preparation for the Trust’s move to Aldwark. This provided a wonderful opportunity to rationalise and re-box the collection, and to gather together archive material held throughout the Trust. As the Trust's library will be dispersed to various locations in the new building, some time was spent on re-locating material. Throughout this reorganisation, the archive and library were used by Trust and JORVIK staff and others. Sales of York Archaeological Trust publications, sold via the library, fell slightly with some of the most desirable volumes gradually going out of print. The re-printing of AY 17/12, Bone and Antler from Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York, supported by Regia Anglorum, was very welcome.

Sales of images from the Trust’s Picture Library at http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/piclib/photos.php. continued to grow, with a number of publishing houses now regularly approaching the Trust for images. The Picture Library proved a very useful resource for Trust staff during the year, and some new material was added. The photographic archive itself continued to grow with site and publication images, most now available on IADB. Work scanning older material into digital form proceeded, and some time was spent preparing the large collection of slides for the move to the new premises.

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