American Anthropological Association Position on Dissemination of Research « American Anthropological Association

"No one on the SCA [Society for Cultural Anthropology] Executive Committee was aware that, on January 12, AAA Executive Director Bill Davis had already sent his letter to the White House..., which while not mentioning the Research Works Act, was nevertheless unrepentantly defensive of the status quo and unequivocally opposed to open access mandates from the federal government....On February 3, the SCA executive board received an email from AAA President Leith Mullings, which simply directed them to see the [anti-OA] statement posted above. But there is no reference to the Research Works Act (the subject of the [pro-OA] SCA resolution sent to Mullings and Davis); there is no date, or any account of why the executive board made this statement at this time; there is no mention of Davis’s letter; there is no link to this “position” of the AAA on either the “Issues & News” page, or on the “Public Policy/Advocacy” page, or on the “Public Position Statements” page. It just sort of floats out here in cyberspace, unattached to anything, only creating confusion should you happen to find it....As a former editor of Cultural Anthropology, I thought I had become inured to the murk, doublespeak, or outright hostility that any mention of open access elicited from the upper levels of AAA. But apparently not: I find this [AAA] statement, which skillfully avoids stating anything at all of substance, absolutely discouraging. Who could possibly want to join in a “conversation” about the sustainability of AAA publishing, which the AAA claims it wants to have, when Davis’s strongly and clearly worded letter isn’t even posted here as a AAA “position” or “statement,” but instead we get this kind of non-statement from the executive board, completely untethered from real world events and issues? And who could possibly want to join in a “conversation” about the sustainability of AAA publishing, when years of previous “conversation” with numerous dedicated AAA members have only led to Bill Davis informing the White House that “we know of no research that demonstrates a problem with the existing system”?!?! That’s a recipe for frustration, and I have had enough of that…"