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Mar 16

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Visiting Colorado College

I was educated at big public research universities and–when not employed in museums–I have worked at large public research universities. My only teaching experiences outside such contexts were two courses taught at the private University of Tulsa as an adjunct during my time working as a curator at the Gilcrease Museum. This summer, I have been given a unique opportunity to teach in a very different context. During late July and early August, I will be a visiting professor at Colorado College (CC) in Colorado Springs. I will be teaching Introduction to Folklife for the Anthropology and Southwest Studies programs at CC. The class will be small and the teaching intense because CC has (and is famous for) The Block Plan. In the Block Plan, students take only one course at a time and work on it intensively for a bit more than three weeks before moving on to their next class. There are many reasons for me to be enthusiastic about this opportunity but, more than anything else, I think that it will be a great experience that will strengthen my work as an undergraduate teacher.

Among the simpler advantages of the block plan is the fact that it makes class excursions possible, thus the class and I will be able to visit, for instance, key museum exhibitions in Denver. We will also be able to host visiting experts in class.

Outside of the teaching aspect, Colorado College is home to a great faculty that includes many fantastic scholars in the fields of anthropology, folklore, and ethnomusicology. It is notably the home to my friend and collaborator Victoria Levine. I am very thankful for the opportunity that the faculty and administration at CC is providing me.

If you know anyone interested in studying anthropologically-oriented folkloristics this summer in Colorado, CC accepts visiting undergraduate students for its summer sessions.

Mar 16

Share Anthropology!

Share Anthropology is the brand new place to go when you want to share anthropology. The site is for “sharing and disseminating open access anthropology.” What does that mean?

The simple site has a “submit” button at the upper right. If you click it you can get some clear and helpful guidance.

Please help share and disseminate open access anthropology articles, books and dissertations by linking to blog posts, reviews, and discussions about that work. DO add a short “description.” DON”T link to the primary Open Access works themselves. Rather, link to blog posts, reviews, and discussions of that work. (Linked discussion should contain at least one link to an Open Access anthropology article, book, or dissertation.)

So, what this new tool is built to do is to aggregate and circulate open access discussions of scholarly works in anthropology that are themselves made available in open access form. It is not an aggregator of the scholarship itself (as the Open Folklore search tool is in the neighboring field of folklore studies) but is instead an aggregtor of value-added discussions of that underlying open access scholarship. Thus is it a place to discover, but also to call attention to, articles, blog posts, etc. that build on or comment upon open access works. (As open access scholarship continues to expand, this distinction might break down, but for Share Anthropology’s startup phase, it seems clear.)

The other main part of the site is an RSS feed so that you can learn about what others are sharing via a feed reader.

Congratulations to Kerim Friedman for getting this going! Kerim has introduced the project in a Savage Minds post. Check it out and check out Share Anthropology.

Very promising!

Mar 15

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Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool + Ethnobiology Letters

Two things that I am happy and excited to learn about are:

The Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool being held this summer at Michigan State University.

Ethnobiology Letters, a gold open access publication of the Society for Ethnobiology.

Mar 5

Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights

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

Feb 18

New Jobs: Terri Jordan Edition

In more great job news from Oklahoma, Terri Jordan, an MA graduate of the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology who has been working as collections manager in the Native American Languages Division of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (at the University of Oklahoma), has just taken a new job as Curator of the Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive, also at the University of Oklahoma.  During her time at IU, Terri pursued the double MA/MLS degree with a focus on archives, museum work and public folklore. I had the unusual honor of working with Terri both at the University of Oklahoma, where she was an undergraduate student and at IU at the final phase of her MA work. Congratulations go to Terri on the occasion of this promotion to a position of greater responsibility. Curating an archive of political advertisements!  What a great opportunity for a folklorist (and archivist, of course).

Feb 15

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Stuart Shieber on Dissertations Online

I recommend Stuart Shieber’s recent remarks on [OA] Dissertations being made available online. Shieber is Director of Harvard University’s Office of Scholarly Communications and a professor of computer science. He importantly highlights the foundational “public contribution to knowledge” dimension of the Ph.D. tradition.

Feb 13

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New Jobs: Kimberly Marshall Edition

I am super pleased to learn that Kimberly Marshall, an excellent anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, folklorist and Native studies scholar with whom I work at Indiana University Bloomington has just accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Kimberly is presently finalizing a dissertation for the IU Departments of Anthropology and of Folklore and Ethnomusicology that focuses on music and cultural performance in the context of contemporary Navajo Christian communities. She is a great fit for Oklahoma and she is joining a vital anthropology department with great students and colleagues, as well as a deep history of important work across her many fields. Congratulations Kim!  Congratulations Oklahoma!

Feb 3

Kim Fortun Reflects on the Open Folklore Project

Anthropologist and science studies scholar Kim Fortun has written an essay discussing the Open Folklore project for Anthropology News. Her piece is currently accessible (toll free) via the AAA website. Kim is the outgoing co-editor of  Cultural Anthropology and a thoughtful advocate for rethinking scholarly communication work in anthropology.

Jan 29

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Why you should listen to librarians about copyright

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

Jan 28

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Outstanding Collaboration Citation for Open Folklore

The Open Folklore project, a collaborative effort between the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries and the American Folklore Society, is the recipient of the 2011 Outstanding Collaboration Citation. The honor comes from the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services within the American Library Association.

The award recognizes and encourages collaborative problem-solving efforts in the areas of acquisition, access, management, preservation or archiving of library materials, as well as a demonstrated benefit from actions, services or products that improve and assist with the management of library collections.
Open Folklore debuted in October 2010 to provide open online access to many useful — but heretofore difficult to access — research materials in the field of folklore studies, including books, journals, “gray literature” (unpublished) and web sites.

“Open Folklore is extraordinary in its vision and its promise. A true example of the spectacular things that can be achieved together but which are entirely impossible alone,” said Julie Bobay, Associate Dean of IU Bloomington Libraries.

“Ultimately, Open Folklore will become a multifaceted resource, combining digitization and digital preservation of data, publications, educational materials and scholarship in folklore; promoting open access to these materials and providing an online search tool to enhance discoverability of relevant, reliable resources for folklore studies,” said Kurt Dewhurst, president of the American Folklore Society.

“As it grows, Open Folklore will provide a vehicle — guided by scholars — for libraries to re-envision our traditional library services centered on collections — selection, acquisition, describing, curating and providing access to a wide range of materials, published or not,” said Brenda Johnson, Dean of IU Bloomington Libraries. “The progress of this experiment will, in a very real way, illuminate the path academic libraries must take in supporting collection development in the digital age.”

Primarily, Open Folklore was developed so quickly and productively because of the close match between the collection development and scholarly communications priorities of the IU Libraries and the American Folklore Society, Dewhurst said.

Barbara Fister of Inside Higher Ed blog Library Babel Fish, said the project is drawing “a terrific map for societies unsure of how to proceed” with open access.

“Partnering with Indiana University Libraries, the American Folklore Society is identifying where their literature is and how much of it is accessible, bringing attention to existing and potential open access journals, asking rights holders if material can be set free, digitizing gray literature so it will be preserved . . . these folks are sharp,” Fister said. “And they’re doing what scholarly societies should do: promoting the field and sharing its collective knowledge for the greater good.”

“As a librarian deeply involved in building digital collections of the future, I view Open Folklore as a stunning example of the value of, and opportunities presented by, new developments in scholarly communication,” said John Wilkin, executive director of HathiTrust Digital Library.

The award will be presented at the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services Awards Ceremony at the Annual Conference in June 2011.

(From an IU Bloomington press release.)

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