Evaluation of the Opportunities and Challenges of Digitizing the Practice of Conducting Field Surveys and Compiling Resource Inventories in the Preservation Profession

As technology advances, changes inevitably occur within the preservation community in the practice of conducting field surveys and compiling and managing building inventories. The days of hand written forms and tedious data entry are passing as digital survey forms and hand held personal digital assistants (PDA's) make information compilation more efficient. Digital cameras simplify the process of capturing images and appending them to reports. Through the easy steps of pointing, shooting, uploading, and inserting, data is smoothly and clearly illustrated. With these advancements come both exciting possibilities and questions of effects. At this time, as the process of data compilation is changing, it is important as a professional community to reevaluate what it is we aim to achieve as we conduct surveys and compile inventories, and whether and to what extent the evolving technologies are serving those goals.