Working for OA to anthropological research

Rex, Please sign the Open Access Anthropology Letter, Savage Minds, November 10, 2006.  Excerpt:

(here is the official invitation to the OAA event at the AAA. If you agree with this letter, please sign it by clicking "edit" on the link and adding your true name in alphabetical order)

Scholarly societies are in crisis, and the AAA [American Anthropological Association] is among them. Dwindling revenues from sales of AAA Journals are among the causes, and if we don't staunch the bleeding now, we are warned, there will be nothing left to give.

How has the AAA gotten to a point where its solvency seems to be based solely on the sales of our scholarly work? Work that has already been paid for by public and private granting agencies which we pay registration fees to present at conferences organized by the scholarly society we pay membership fees to join? Why must we also charge our readers?

Recently, the AAA publicly voiced its opposition to Federal Legislation that would require federally funded research to be freely available to the people who paid for it: citizens. This public opposition is clearly not in the interest of AAA members —and the AnthroSource Steering Committee has publicly said as much, proposing a range of initiatives to make our collective work more accessible. For this criticism, the ASSC was dissolved.

Clearly, something needs to change.

1) we need a solid open access policy to make anthropological research widely available;

2) we need a more transparent financial arrangement between the association and its members;

3) we need a form of financial sustainability that does not compromise our ability to disseminate our research.

We invite the sections and their members to start thinking creatively about the solution to these problems....

There will be an informal meeting to discuss Open Access on Saturday the 18th at noon at Gordon Biersch, 33 E. Santa Clara Street (between First and Second).

In the mean time, there are various ways you can be involved. Learn about the issue by visiting [the Open Access Anthropology wiki]. 

There is also an Open Access email list that you can join if you want to talk about these issues, or if you simply want to hear what other people are saying....