News in brief

Ever gazed out of the tea cabin window and wondered what happened to the team you dug with a couple of seasons back? Well, you've heard of 'Friends Reunited,' now there's Digs Reunited. Cole Henley, an Edinburgh-based research student, says his site aims 'to help diggers past and present get back in touch with people they've met on excavations but have since lost touch with.' The idea came to him 'on a long stumble home from the pub.' The free site has been a runaway success, with over 500 people registering in the first few weeks. Check it out at http://www.cole007.net/digsreunited/.

An ex-archaeologist is researching what diggers think about the current state of the profession. Paul Everill asks, 'Do you enjoy the job you do? Does your future lie within commercial archaeology? Has the profession changed since you started out? What would you change about it?' Contact him at Dept of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Highfield, Southampton or through his website at http://www.invisiblediggers.net.

Dave Webb is collecting images of archaeologists on his website at http://www.archdiggers.co.uk/diggers/. The photographer says that a discipline concerned with documenting people's activities 'seems to have forgotten to record itself.' He wants to 'replace the usual anonymous back of the head shot of diggers seen in archaeological reports and put a face to them instead.'

Prospect and the IFA are holding a joint conference in Birmingham on Skills and Pay on 31 May.

Contact Becky Wright at 75-79 York Rd, London SE1 7AQ or 020 7902 6670 for details.