Sep 9
As Alex Golub’s Star Wars themed translation of two of my recent posts demonstrates, I am not the best communicator on scholarly communications issues, but I will keep trying. A note on the form that articles can take when circulated in green OA fashion, as well as the places where such materials can be “put” follows below. Read more
I am very pleased to note that the edited book version of Hacking the Academy appeared online today. The online version lives on a site built by the volume’s publisher Digital Culture Books, an imprint of the University of Michigan Press. The volume has been edited by Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt, both of the Center for History and New Media. It is based on contributions submitted during one week–May 21-28, 2010.
I am very pleased to have been included in this volume and I want to thank the editors, the publisher, and all those who supported the project, including the many readers and cheerleaders who offered encouragement to the effort.
My chapter in the volume is based on an essay that originally appeared on this site (where the longer, older version can still be found). In the book, it is the first chapter of the “Hacking Scholarship” section. As with the earlier version, it is titled “Getting Yourself Out of the Business in Five Easy Steps” and it offers an argument for withdrawing, where possible, from entanglements with commercial academic publishing in favor of lending energy, support, and resources to the strengthening of the existing public-sector scholarly communications system and to the building of a more democratic, ethical, sustainable, and open one for the future. It thus relates directly to my more recent post on the enclosure of scholarly journals in anthropology (and to other things that I do, including working on the Open Folklore project and editing Museum Anthropology Review.
I am so thankful to everyone who has engaged not only with the essay but with me in the larger work of understanding and reshaping the ways scholars share their work with the world. The biggest shout out of all, in this regards, goes to my colleagues at the Indiana University Libraries and the IUScholarWorks program. They have been my teachers and tremendous partners in the work. They are awesome!
The old-fashioned version of Hacking the Academy will be published next year. Find the online version here: http://www.digitalculture.org/hacking-the-academy/
Dan Cohen’s reflections on the project can be found online here: http://www.dancohen.org/2011/09/08/some-thoughts-on-the-hacking-the-academy-process-and-model/
I should have noted it previously, but the excellent folks at Traditional Arts Indiana have gotten the recording of my early summer webinar on the Creative Commons up online. If you missed it and are just dying to check it out, the details (and a link to the recording) can be found on the TAI website here. Thanks to TAI for organizing this event. I am glad that the more recent TAI Webinars that have been successful. Details on all this activity can be found on the TAI webpage at http://www.traditionalartsindiana.org.
See my earlier post on this event here.
Jun 8
In the wake of the recent Creative Commons-focused Artisan Ancestors podcast that I did with Jon Kay, I am leading a free webinar on the Creative Commons. Traditional Arts Indiana (which Jon directs) is organizing the event. I will be introducing the CC and addressing its special relevance to those working in or with the “traditional” arts and vernacular/community culture. The event is free and will happen online on June 14 at 12:15 p.m. (timed for the lunch hour). Full details on how to participate can be found here, on the Traditional Arts Indiana website. We are planning to be together online for about 45 minutes and there will be opportunities for questions/discussion. If you are interested, please join in.
Jun 8
I recently did an interview with Jon Kay for his fine Artisan Ancestors podcast. The audio podcast series bridges the interests of folklore/folklife/cultural history scholars and those of avocational researchers and craftspeople interested in art and everyday life, past and present. The particular topic for our conversation was the Creative Commons–what it is and what it is for, with some special consideration of its relevance to the concerns of the folklore-minded Artisan Ancestors audience. Jon is a great interviewer and his show is quickly gaining a following. I am very thankful to have participated in it and hope that our discussion proves useful to someone.
The show (Episode 22) can be found on the Artisan Ancestors website here and on iTunes, where one can both download individual shows and subscribe to the podcast in an ongoing way. Its free!
The interview is a prelude to a webinar that we will do next week. Details on that will come in a followup post.
Learn more about the Creative Commons on its website.
My review of Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights by former NEA Chairman (and AFS President) Bill Ivey was recently published in JFRR (Journal of Folklore Research Reviews). JFRR is an open access fork of the established toll access folklore journal Journal of Folklore Research. JFRR publishes reviews of diverse media in folklore studies and circulates the reviews via email. They are also available in search-able form online at http://www.indiana.edu/~jofr/reviewsearch.php.
My review can be found online here: http://www.indiana.edu/~jofr/review.php?id=715
Jan 29
Why you should listen to librarians about copyright.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/copyrightlibn/2011/01/why-you-should-listen-to-librarians-about-copyright.html
Barbara Fister is a consistently wonderful voice on scholarly communications and libraries issues. I strongly recommend her discussion of the recently published interview with Derek Haank, former chairman of Elsevier Science and current head of Springer. I read the interview via Richard Poynder’s blog Open and Shut (the full interview is linked to from that site) and learned of it from someone’s recent tweet. Without getting frustrated and spending a lot of extra words on it, I will just say that I think that the disbelief among librarians is justified and that this articulate voice from commercial scholarly publishing makes clear why I oppose commercial scholarly publishing as we have known it and we now still experience it.
From a December 20, 2010 Mukurtu Project Press Release:
Mukurtu: An Indigenous Archive and Content Management Tool
New Website Announcement
http://www.mukurtuarchive.org
Project Director: Dr. Kimberly Christen; Director of Development: Dr. Michael Ashley; Lead Drupal Developer: Nicholas Tripcevich
In March 2010 the Mukurtu project was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Start‐Up grant to produce a beta‐version of an open‐source, standards‐based community digital archive and content management platform. As the third phase of an ongoing software production project, the Mukurtu team is aware that indigenous and tribal libraries, archives and museums are underserved by both off‐the‐shelf content management systems (CMS) and open source CMS and digital archive/web production tools. Over the last decade as web technologies have diversified to include user‐generated content and more sophisticated digital archive and content management tools the specific needs of indigenous collecting institutions have been left out of mainstream productions. Based on long‐term research and collaboration with indigenous communities and collecting institutions, Mukurtu’s development and production has focused on producing a digital archive and content management tool suite that meets the expressed needs of indigenous communities globally. Specifically, Mukurtu:
The Mukurtu software tool suite is under development now with a system demonstration site planned for Spring 2011. Our informational website, development blog, and wiki are now live. These sites allow us to chronicle our development progress, provide updates and engage with users as we move forward to a full launch in August 2011.
Please visit the new site at: www.mukurtuarchive.org and follow the links to learn more about the Mukurtu project goals, development, and collaborations.
Shreds and Patches 