You’re probably right that posting links to articles would be onerous, but links to each issues when it’s posted (plus pulling in the TOC) might be doable.

Browsing, I found these lists of OA journals, some specifically anthro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-access_journals (incomplete. we should add anthro); http://iamcr.org/content/view/195/322 (detailed Communications list); http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/dean/peer_reviewed.htm (U Colorado. 4 anthro titles); http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=124&uiLanguage=en (directory of open access journals list for anthropology); http://amirmideast.blogspot.com/2010/12/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html (crazy-long list of middle east journals); http://amirmideast.blogspot.com/2010/12/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html (has anthro section).

Which is a lot to handle. Your tumblr or an associated twitter could be a great way to draw visibility to good journals or articles, but it would probably take a group to sort through for the good stuff. And with so many journals popping up, there are still the issue of centralized search systems, and new forms of ranking and reputation. I suspect only when hierarchies of value become a part of open access will it really take off, and that’s probably when it becomes more than just HAU vs. the rest. But I may be repeating others here. Thoughts?

Actually created a Tumblr with something like this in mind – although rather than link to every OA anthropology article I thought we’d link to blog posts about OA articles. It never really took off, but you can see it here:

http://shareanthropology.tumblr.com/

I follow the Anthropology of Christianity world, and James Bielo and Jon Bialecki have recently put together a great ongoing tumblr at http://anthrocybib.net/, a “biblographic blog” that consists of pointing to articles whenever they find a new one on this topic. I pull in the RSS feed to my reader, and it’s a great way to keep in touch with the latest.

We could mimic this for open-access anthropology, creating a curated bibliographic blog (citation plus abstract, or with a brief summary of the value of the work). In this way, OA materials could more quickly become building blocks of knowledge in the anthro social world.

On that note, I like Jeremy’s idea about creating a site/space where we can list the current OA anthro journals, describe what they are about, and generally help to create more awareness for the options that do exist. We could even create one running list and add that as a page or category to more than one site (the OAC, here on SM, Neuroanthropology, etc).

Paul wrote:

“It’s like trying to teach goldfish to imagiine a world without fishbowls. We do need to start building infrastructures like HAU, but more of them.”

Exactly. One massive problem is that lots of people don’t even know there’s a problem, or that we can do something about how things currently work. And I definitely agree that what we need are more sites/projects like HAU.

After departmental review and external review for tenure, you are next evaluated by professors from around your university who aren’t anthropologists. Some of them might want quantitative evidence of quality for your publications; other might be happy with a narrative explanation from your department about the quality of the journals in which you published.

I agree with Kerim that having open access anthropology journals in SSCI ratings is one step. The other big step is to have existing journals convert to open access; I don’t know what it would take for non-AAA journals such as Current Anthropology or Anthropological Quarterly to do that, and I’m glad the conversation has started (again) about AAA publishers and policies. As a new online, open-access anthropology journal that launched with high quality, peer-reviewed scholarship from senior as well as junior anthropologists, and with an argument about anthropology, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory is a great example in its first issue. Full disclosure: I’m on the editorial board of HAU (and also have tenure). As open access journals like HAU establish their reputation in the field, part of it is editorial in terms of quality/strength of the publication, and part of it is collective in terms all of us submitting articles, peer reviewing articles, then reading, teaching, and citing work from these journals. Having good, respected open access journals in anthropology will definitely change things.

If you start by targeting a particular journal on purely scholarly grounds without any consideration of for-profit status, bad corporate citizenship, or open access stance, you can use an author addendum to try to modify your author agreement to allow for various kinds of open access practices, including green OA deposit of the final publisher’s version. Get one in a matter of minutes by searching the web for “scholar’s copyright addendum engine – science commons.”

In addition to knowing that it is positioned well on the SSCI, you can have chosen that journal on the basis of a knowledge of what the underlying author agreement is going to say. We do not have to wait until acceptance to know a journal’s terms vis-a-vis open access. This is what the SHERPA/RoMEO database is for (also easily found with a web search). This means that even if a publisher rejects your author addendum (in which you aim to retain additional rights to your article–this could be the right to circulate the typeset version, but it could also be the film rights or any number of other rights), you will have chosen the journal because it allows for basic green OA deposit of the post-print or at least the original (pre-print) manuscript. There will be a significant number of SSCI journals that thus allow for basic green OA. You can comparison shop for the best green OA “deals” among SSCI anthropology journals right now in the SHERPA/RoMEO database. We should be supporting journals that have clear and sensible green OA policies.

If for-profit/not-for-profit status also matters above or beyond green OA and SSCI status, then thankfully anthropology still has (for the moment at least!) high profile (SSCI) journals that are outside the control or influence of the large commercial publishers. Examples include Anthropological Quarterly, Ethnology, Ethnohistory, and Current Anthropology, among others. My view is that we should be working to support a diversity of publishers in anthropology so as to prevent the publishing equivalent of monocropping. Wiley’s partnerships have moved anthropology much, much closer to “all eggs in one basket” status, but we still have comparatively high levels of publisher diversity. We should support those departments, societies, and collectives that are working with sensible university presses (like Duke University Press) or who are making it work well on their own. When you publish in AQ you are helping fund the education of graduate students at George Washington University. When you publish in Ethnohistory you are helping Duke publish monographs and helping the American Society for Ethnohistory at the same time. They do not have to worry about shareholder dividends. As the current Elsevier boycott discussions reveal, some fields not longer have the kinds of diversity we still enjoy and thus junior scholars are even more trapped by the SSCI than we are.

None of this is an endorsement of the SSCI or audit culture in general. Its just one possible game plan for dealing with it while also supporting open access and, perhaps also, opposing the corporate enclosure of our publishing system. This is a green OA answer. As a gold OA journal editor and proponent, there is other work that can be done on that front. In one of the simplest kinds of help for gold OA, scholars can peer-review for gold OA journals like HAU even as they are pressured to publish in green OA friendly SSCI journals.

I was thinking that it might be good to start a site that does three things (maybe more, but three for now): 1) Lists open access journals – just a simple list would do for now, we can add some kind of quality control later, 2) provides a kind of manifesto for open access – why should we support it, and so on, and 3) has a form or something for people who can and want to participate in a kind of boycott. This last could include multiple ways of participating – i.e. “I commit to not offfering peer review services to non-OA journals” or “I commit to not publishing in non-OA journals.” We could then show a tally and maybe some names if people are willing so we can feel more like a movement than lots of lone people ttaking a noble, but fruitless stand.

Just a thought…