TASA: A Community-Facing Spatial Archive for Heritage Data

The Tsimshian Archaeological Spatial Archive (TASA) is a proprietary and secure digital platform to archive and share digital data on heritage between UBC and the Nine Tribes (Lax Kw'alaams and Metlakatla First Nations). The system stores any kind of digital object and is particularly useful for documents, photographs and video records. It has alpha-numeric and filed hierarchy search functions, but its main advantage over other archival systems is its spatial interface. Data of any form are indexed to the relevant places on the landscape that the data are associated with. This allows users to browse without having to understand the taxonomic system or the meta-data indexing system that sorts the information. Hence people can explore data sets for which they have no prior understanding. For example, archaeologists can explore oral records and Tsimshian people can explore archaeological data more easily using TASA. As an archive, this facilitates more democratic access to information and a richer sharing of understanding across cultural distance. In this presentation, we will showcase TASA and discuss its history and features while evaluating its limitations and strengths.

Organized by the Indigenous/Science Research Cluster.