The EU funded EwaGlos Project has produced a downloadable PDF version of The Illustrated Glossary of Conservation Terms for Wall Paintings and Architectural Surfaces (October 2015).

‘EwaGlos, which has been developed in eleven languages, highlights the crucial role that professionally developed multilingual vocabularies play in international preservation campaigns. The illustrated glossary stresses the importance of a common language in the conservation field, and the role that international cooperation plays in creating this common terminology. The core of the glossary comprises approximately 200 definitions of terms frequently used in specifications in the field of conservation-restoration of wall paintings and architectural surfaces.’

Click here to download the free glossary.

Historic Environment Scotland, the new lead public body for the country’s historic environment, brings together Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, and will continue to be a vital member of FISH.

More information on the merger can be found here.

English Heritage has been a long-standing member of FISH. From 1 April 2015 English Heritage will separate into two organisations.

English Heritage will become a charity and continue to cater for the national Heritage Collection of over 400 historic places and collections.

Historic England will remain a Government service offering expert advice on heritage and carry on working with FISH on standards and terminology developments.

The Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) and the VISTA Centre at University of Birmingham have recently developed a bespoke bilingual and fully integrated Cultural Heritage Management Application in Access database and ArcGIS. The new customized application uses Open Source code. The MIDAS Heritage data standard – developed and expanded by FISH in 2008 – was reviewed as part of the development process.

It is hoped this cultural resource management tool will be used by other Historic Environment Records in the Middle East in the near future.

The two main components of the QNHER system are the user interface and the server APIs. The user interface is an HTML5 client application which runs in a web browser over the Internet. It communicates with the server via a set of open APIs. The server APIs are exposed via a Proxy Server and all traffic between the Internet and the server is encrypted using HTTPS.

For more information, please read this seminar paper about the project (published 2010) or contact Richard Cuttler, Senior Project Manager, IBM VISTA, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham: rcuttler@bham.ac.uk

A new Special Interest Group has been set up for Under-Represented and Intangible Heritage (URIH-SIG). Over the last few years various projects and seminars have explored ways in which heritage organizations can make their records more accessible to users interested in aspects of faith, gender, ethnicity, women, sexuality and intangible heritage (e.g. folklore, music, dance).

To assist in the consistent indexing of records held by museums, libraries, archives and heritage organizations (the cultural heritage sector) a terminology working group is being established. The group will focus on identifying existing terminologies and standardized vocabularies for use in recording diversity. Its main aims will be to encourage the use of, and access to, collections, archives and records systems and to develop guidance for the recording of objects relating to under-represented heritage.

The Special Interest Group will report to FISH via the FISH Terminology Working Group (FISH-TWG).

Further information on intangible heritage can be found on the UNESCO website.

English Heritage, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, the Archaeology Data Service and the University of South Wales are pleased to announce that cultural heritage thesauri and vocabularies are now freely available as Linked Open Data as a preliminary outcome of the SENESCHAL project at:  http://www.heritagedata.org.

The vocabularies, which include concepts relating to monument types, archaeological objects, events and time periods and maritime craft are also available for download in SKOS format.

The former Archaeology Terminology Working Group (ATWG) is expanding its remit to include all terminologies covered by MIDAS Heritage. The group is therefore changing its name to the FISH Terminology Working Group and will be run under the auspices of FISH.

We are looking to expand membership and would welcome FISH members to express their interest in joining. The focus of the group is on the development of standards, and controlled vocabularies in particular, and as such experience or expertise in this area would be beneficial.

Please contact us if you are interested in joining the group.