Comments on: Open Access in San Jose

By: Matter Out Of Place » Anthropological Activism: Open Access Anthropology

Matter Out Of Place » Anthropological Activism: Open Access Anthropology — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:17:28 +0000

[…] Kerim at Savage Minds has done a great job promoting Open Access Anthropology. He has set up a Wiki and calls for help “…[to] make this the best Wiki page ever!” (*). […]

By: Kerim

Kerim — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:58:05 +0000

Just for the record, the wiki is now at:

http://openaccessanthropology.org/

By: Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog » Who’s down with OAA?

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:38:30 +0000

[…] It got buried in the comments section of the last post on this topic, so I thought I should give it more prominent display: […]

By: Digging Digitally » This Morning’s Jaw Dropper: More on FRPAA and the AAA

Digging Digitally » This Morning’s Jaw Dropper: More on FRPAA and the AAA — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:44:52 +0000

[…] BTW: Changing the AAA is going to require some grassroots organizing. Some anthropological bloggers want to get together at the AAA meeting in San Jose to discuss ways to push forward an Open Access agenda. Find out more here! […]

By: Eric Kansa

Eric Kansa — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 17:37:41 +0000

Hi all,

I’ve been terribly busy teaching so I haven’t been keeping up with the blogging as much as I would like. Nov. 3 at Savage Minds shocked me into getting my act together.

Count me in for an open access meeting. I’d love to participate in this, and contribute to this in some way.

-Eric Kansa

By: Kerim

Kerim — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:18:10 +0000

Thanks John. We have discussed possibly installing e-prints on this site, but your point makes it sound as if it would be better if it were hosted by a university. That is very helpful information. Regarding having a web page. It seems that having a wiki to do this would be the most suitable approach. Here is a page on my wiki which we can use. Everyone: Please help us get started fleshing out some content.

By: John Russell

John Russell — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 13:47:06 +0000

There are a number of software options for creating a subject repository for anthropology, but a really popular and open source option is E-Prints. If AAA wouldn't support something like this, I'd bet that one could find a university/university library that would. The one drawback is that some of the bigger publishers may have policies against posting pre-prints in subject repositories (while allowing submissions to institutional repositories). I do like the idea of creating a web page with info about OA and anthropology and then handing out cards or stickers - it allows the conversation to continue on after AAA is over.

By: Erkan's field diary

Erkan's field diary — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 08:03:19 +0000

“Open Access in San Jose…

Well, I cannot join this year’s AAA but for those up for San Jose, Savage Minds people are up to promote Open Access and here is also a summary of what they are up to in terms of presentations. Lorenz……

By: _

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 21:49:29 +0000

Regarding open access scholarship and the internet and the dissemination of papers:

I have been wondering if a system like the physics pre-print server arxiv would work in anthropology. It is basically free-wheeling: one just uploads a paper once one has been endorsed by one of the Board (how this works exactly I am not sure). There is an email alert service, searching, etc. As far as I understand, it has become *the* place for discussion in real physics and mathemtatics, with papers sent to the journals as an afterthought after they have been debated and revised.

There is no peer review, per se, except that of — guess what — one’s peers! They read the publicly posted work with the name attached, so serious scholars police themselves: what could be worse for a career than making an ass out of oneself and having your entire community of discourse hear about it (automatically) via email? It works fine, and the crazies don’t get endorsed so there isn’t a lot of clutter. (And it isn’t like peer review keeps out the childish vitriol in anthropology anyway.)

If not a complete transposition of this system, maybe we could use/start something inspired by it?

The software would be pretty easy to recreate or borrow from them too.

Link: http://arxiv.org/