HEIRNET, the Historic Environment Information Resources Network, was formed in 1998 by the Council for British Archaeology with the National Monuments Records for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Archaeology Data Service, Historic Scotland, Cadw, Re:source, the mda, Manx National Heritage, Historic Scotland, the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers, Association of Regional & Island Archaeologists, Institute of Field Archaeologists, Institute for Historic Building Conservation and others.

H E I R N E T

HEIRNET aims to enable people to access information resources about the Historic Environment whether for conservation, research, learning or to satisfy their own personal interests. HEIRNET does this by finding ways for organisations to work together and share their resources.

Image of Ardifuar dun courtesy of SCRAN

Research has shown that people are interested in finding out more about the historic environment – in their local area, when on holiday or for their children’s education. Academics and conservation professionals also wish to improve their access to information that may be held by several different organisations.

Image of the Time Team courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Programme

HEIRPORT is an exciting new development because, for the first time it allows users to search several important heritage databases at the same time.

For example:

Using HEIRPORT to find out about the stone circle at Callanish on the Isle of LewisImage courtesy of SCRAN

callanish

To find these results HEIRPORT is searching four databases which are held in different parts of the UK.

CANMORE - the database of the National Monuments Record of Scotland.

SCRAN - the Scottish Cultural Resource Access Network.

ArcHSearch - the index to the Archaeology Data Service Collections.

The Portable Antiquities database

Each database can be searched separately on-line.

CANMORE SCRAN

ADS

Portable Antiquities

HEIRPORT allows users to search all four databases at once.

The searches are designed to help people to answer common enquiries about aspects of the historic environment.

For example a search for remains from Medieval Berwick.

medieval

berwick

Users can look at the results from one database while searches of the others are still underway.

Users can click on the link in the summary results displayed by HEIRPORT to see the full record and any additional materials in the live database.

HEIRPORT is developing…

in future you will be able to -

- search more databases - use point-and-click map searches- even search while out in the field by using a WAP phone

Image of Shap Abbey, courtesy of NMR, English Heritage