A DSpace Search Portal for Laboratory Services in Archaeometry and Heritage Science

Researchers in archaeometry and heritage science communities face significant barriers when seeking appropriate analytical facilities for the analysis of their samples. Information about laboratory services, instrument capabilities, experimental protocols, and data quality is often fragmented and untransparent across institutional websites, personal networks, and informal communication channels. This lack of a structured platform hinders effective planning of analytical activities, discourages cross-institutional collaboration, and leads to sub-optimal selection of methods. On the other hand, laboratories lack consistent and plain-language documentation to communicate their analytical offerings, which reduces visibility of laboratory expertise, limits comparability of analytical data from different sources, and poses a serious challenge in ensuring data quality and reproducibility.

Our TRAIL addresses these issues by designing an online search portal to manage, store, and openly share essential information about laboratory services and their associated digital assets. Leveraging community-driven metadata profiles and open-source DSpace software, our portal serves as a central hub where researchers can locate and compare analytical facilities suited to their research questions. The portal enhances the findability and reliability of analytical activities, supports the consistent documentation of laboratory workflows, and promotes reproducible, high-quality scientific practice.