Publishing Otherwise — Cultural Anthropology

"Earlier this summer, the Society for Cultural Anthropology (SCA) announced my appointment as the next managing editor of Cultural Anthropology. As an anthropologist and an information professional, I’m honored to step into this position and to follow in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessors, Ali Kenner and Tim Elfenbein. My first issue as managing editor will be published in August, but for now, I wanted to introduce myself and to lay out some of my objectives for the months ahead ... Today, Cultural Anthropology needs to broaden its own base of support. We’re proud of our decision to reinvent ourselves as an open-access publication, and we’ve now published six terrific issues that can be freely read and downloaded all over the world. But our transition to open access must be regarded as incomplete, because we have not yet identified a revenue model that will allow us to sustain our operations into the future. Our editors, both current and former, and our tireless board are working to do just that, cultivating relationships with potential partners both within anthropology and beyond. In my new role as managing editor, though, I want to make an explicit appeal to my fellow librarians: will you think with us, as a journal and as a discipline, about how to make open access a sustainable reality? I have already reached out to my colleagues in the Anthropology and Sociology Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries, and I look forward to a robust, pragmatic dialogue about the path ahead.  Here’s a preview of some of the other initiatives that are in the works for the coming year ..."