2023-2024 Faculty Research Grant

Terry Robertson (James White Library) and Oystein LaBianca (Social & Behavioral Sciences).

Hisban Interactive Archive Project (HIAP). 

The Hisban Interactive Archive Project (HIAP) will facilitate digitization and on-line retrieval of all published reports from the original Heshbon Expedition (1968-1976) and the subsequent Hisban Cultural Heritage Project (1996-2022). The goal is to enable researchers and the public to have easy access to all peer reviewed publications that have resulted from over five decades of fieldwork and reporting by successive generations of researchers associated to archaeological explorations at Tall Hisban in Jordan. To this end $5000 is sought to allow the principal investigators to hire two undergraduate and two graduate students to assist them with creating searchable pdfs of all Hisban-related peer reviewed publications. These pdfs will then be made accessible to scholars and the general public via the Digital Commons @ Andrews University (DC@AU). While a substantial number of such pdfs have already been uploaded to DC@AU, not all are searchable. The plan of work, therefore, involves three tasks: one, re-upload all pdfs that are presently not searchable; two, locate, digitize, and upload any and all Hisban related publications that have not already been entered into DC@AU; and three, develop a plan for adding, contingent on future funding, other types of data such as Hisban related photographs, drawings, maps, films, and field notes. Work under this grant would also pave the way for the addition, also contingent on future funding, of all peer-reviewed publications by Andrews University sponsored archaeological projects at Tall al-Umayri, Tall Jalul and Tall Safra .