[Air-L] open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals

[Casey O'Donnell]

There has been a fair amount of talk related to this by
anthropologists. I think your article also falls into what Chris Kelty
wrote about as "Recursive Public Irony," about access to articles
about access can be quite limited:

http://savageminds.org/2005/05/24/recursive-public-irony/
http://blog.openaccessanthropology.org/?p=43

I was the editorial assistant for the journal Cultural Anthropology
and remain involved in it's web-presence, but we too struggled with
how to provide broader access to a journal which frequently contains
information that policy makers, technologists, and activists might
make use of, but typically wont pursue access if its not readily
available.

It exciting to see more efforts like yours, but I think we should
connect efforts as well:

http://savageminds.org/2007/12/19/an-open-access-case-study/
http://manao.manoa.hawaii.edu/

Best.
Casey

On Feb 7, 2008 1:07 AM, danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org> wrote:
> Today, an article of mine was finally published in Sage's Convergence
> series.  I should be excited by this, but I'm actually quite
> depressed.  While I'm lucky to be visible enough that some folks will
> find out about my article and ask me for a copy, most of the articles
> in that issue will barely get read because they are virtually
> inaccessible.  Additionally, while scholars will ask me for my
> article, most policymakers and technologists will not, even though the
> article is probably more relevant to them than it is to you.  I
> believe that the locked-down nature of this publishing regime silences
> academics while capitalizing off of our free labor at every turn.  I
> think that this is unfair, unacceptable, and irresponsible.
>
> Thus, since I'm a blogger, I wrote a ranty blog entry about the topic: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/02/06/openaccess_is_t.html


-- 
Casey O'Donnell
RPI STS Department - PhD Candidate

http://homepage.mac.com/codonnell/