Comments on: AAA, Will you be my Valentine?

By: ckelty

ckelty — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:17:49 +0000

The Chronicle of Higher Ed picked up on this. Fast. They quote this post and the AN exchange. A response from the AAA :

A spokesman for the association said on Thursday that it is experimenting with new ways of encouraging dialogue among its members. "A lot of hard work has gone into trying to make this process as transparent as possible," said Damon Dozier, the association's director of public affairs. Mr. Dozier noted that the association has introduced three new blogs in recent months, and he emphasized that readers can comment online on the Anthropology News symposium, even if the commenting system isn't as sophisticated as Mr. Kelty and Mr. Cross might have liked.

By: ckelty

ckelty — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:40:58 +0000

Thank you for your support [kisses baby, shakes hand]

If elected, I promise to deliver free software for EVERYONE!

There wasn’t much in the way of “push back”—I think the reality of the situation is that it’s too costly to change the way they do things, even when members offer to do the work for free. I wish I understood better—perhaps the AAA needs to spend more on staff in the publications division, perhaps their needs to be a reorganization of the decision chain on such things… really, it’s a mystery to me why they didn’t jump on this, and as I say, that makes it somewhat disheartening. I should also say that I do not think the people who I dealt with directly here, who I will not name, though both their names are cool, are at fault: they seemed very enthusiastic, if overworked. But I suspect our request was just beyond what they could accomplish, and if that’s true, it represents a problem of governance.

By: L.L. Wynn

L.L. Wynn — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:54:02 +0000

KELTY 08!!

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:12:31 +0000

Chris,
That’s a pretty depressing story. Can you divulge what the push back was in terms of hosting the pieces through the Institute for the Future of Books site and with the cool comments software? I’m trying to imagine why the “leaders” would say, “no” to free publicity? and to encouraging a dialogue outside of the hotels at AAA meetings once a year.

You are correct this is a failure of leadership. Which means we need a change in leadership…Hey maybe we can Will.i.am do make a cool video for your campaign. I’ll sign on. YES WE CAN: KELTY 08 🙂

By: ckelty

ckelty — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:03:48 +0000

Thanks Jason, I appreciate that, and the same can certainly be said of your work. You can be my valentine 🙂

By: Jason Baird Jackson

Jason Baird Jackson — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:01:20 +0000

Chris–Thank you for all of your efforts on this front. I value your thoughts and your contributions on this issue very much.

I also value the role that Savage Minds (and everyone who makes it go) has played to this point and will surely continue to play. The Associate Dean of the Libraries in charge of the IU repository program and with related efforts here told me yesterday that she checks Savage Minds regularly for the state of the conversation in anthropology. This has real world effects outside AAA that will, one way or another, eventually reach to the heart of the AAA itself.

Many more people read posts than comment upon them. Many of these readers are opinion leaders and change agents. The same will hold true for the AN pieces.

Jason