Thanks, for that Bruce.
One big problem with open-source initiatives is resources. In S&S's case, this is why we've set up a charity so we can raise funds that way. Scholarly associations can do it through subscriptions. This does rather go back to the arguments we had a few years ago about whether to set up CGF as a real alternative international association for geography. A network with funding could be a very powerful organisation and provide the home and resources for exactly such open-source open-access initiatives...
And so, continuing in this vein of idle speculation, just looking down the names of the list of the editors of this encyclopedia, I see many powerful and respected figures in the discipline, able to command all sorts of resources, many of whom are critical geographers and experts on bottom-up initiatives, new technologies, and spaces of resistance... and now they are Heads of Departments and Research Centres, there's even a Vice-Chancellor. The power such a collection of talent would have to do things differently would be enormous. And there's almost a thousand geographers on this list...
No doubt I am being young, naïve and idealistic... but one would like to imagine not every critical geographer mutates into a 'slumbering behemoth' over time! We now have the tools at our disposal to do things differently, so that's no longer an excuse. Everywhere the power of conventional information distribution is quaking at the sound of millions of typing, downloading, blogging and filesharing fingers... I think that in fifty years time, the current situation will be almost reversed, and we'll be asking why anyone would want to publish conventionally.
David.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce D'Arcus
>Sent: 05 April 2007 16:07
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Elsevier protest from Newcastle
>
>
>On Apr 5, 2007, at 6:56 AM, D F J Wood wrote:
>
>> If, as the editors claim, this volume is really about an ongoing web
>> resource for the advance of scholarship - why not set it up as such?
>> There are examples on this list from Lawrence (with ACME) and
>> myself and
>> others with Surveillance & Society, of how this might work ...
>
>I'm not really following the details of this discussion, but in
>general, I think we ought to encourage the move to open access
>scholarship, including textbook-like content [1].
>
>In the grand scheme of things, the current approach to distributing
>scholarly output is rather archaic. And examples like the ones David
>cites are exactly what we need to be doing more of.
>
>There's some structural inertia here, though, and I suppose we're all
>part of the problem. Here, for example, is an interesting post from
>an open access advocate in the library and technology world about how
>much resistance she has encountered from faculty on this issue:
>
><http://cavlec.yarinareth.net/archives/2007/01/12/who-owns-their-
>research/>
>
>The key line is:
>
>"Faculty [are what I call] 'the slumbering behemoth' for a reason.
>Sure, they ought to give a damn who owns their stuff. They don't, or
>they think wrongly that they own it. I forgot that."
>
>Of course, there are some serious practical issues that need to be
>addressed for the open access movement to really take-off, like how
>to get these sort of non-large-publisher venues appropriately valued
>in tenure and promotion processes.
>
>Bruce
>
>[1] see <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page>
>--
>Bruce D'Arcus, PhD
>Miami University
>Department of Geography
>216 Shideler Hall
>Oxford, OH 45056
>USA
>
>phone: 513-529-1521
>
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