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Archaeological excavations are the last stronghold of analog recording in this era of digital archaeology. Around the world perhaps at this very moment excavations are occurring where artifacts, architecture, stratigraphic layers, and other archaeological datasets are recorded using only the paper and pen. Every evening after an excavation, supervisors and their volunteers huddle over their illuminated graph paper to convert their written notes and drawings into daily top plans. It is these paper top plans, journal notes, and overstuffed binders filled with printed spreadsheets that much later are meticulously entered into a computer. At this point, long after the season of excavation has been wrapped up, that the drudgery of data entry begins, which with large excavations can take months to digitize, process, and produce data that can be digitally analyzed. As multiple seasons of excavations compound, the delay between field excavation, ability to analyze and to publish increases exponentially.

In a national evaluation, we assessed the implementation and outcomes of a multisite demonstration program for homeless persons with alcohol and other drug problems. We developed comprehensive case studies from data on client characteristics, utilization of services, implementation of interventions, and community systems of care at nine project sites. Client-level outcome data were analyzed to estimate the effectiveness of the interventions in a subset of projects with experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation designs. After controlling for baseline predictors, treatment clients in the majority of sites were significantly more likely than comparison clients to report improvement on one or more outcome dimensions. On alcohol use, for example, under conservative assumptions the average treatment client was drinking less at follow-up than were 57 percent of comparison clients. Analyses of predictor-by-treatment interactions suggested that clients with fewer problems benefited most from the interventions. The implementation analysis yielded a number of lessons for policymakers and program planners.