The modern opens the past | Harvard Gazette

abernard102@gmail.com 2013-09-19

Summary:

"It turns out that the past has a future. That is, archaeology has a chance to transform its print-bound publishing norms into a digital-age machine for gathering, sharing, and analyzing vast stores of field data. Such information — often paid for by public funds — is more likely now to be hoarded and parceled out to journals that would be obscure or expensive for most people. Harvard-trained anthropologist Eric Kansa, Ph.D. ’01, brought this message and more to a Harvard audience in the inaugural lecture in a series organized by the Digital Futures consortium. The group began this summer as a One Harvard gathering of experts interested in how the digital age will change scholarship. Kansa is 'a true revolutionary' and “an ethnologist of academic culture,” said Digital Futures co-chair Judson Harward, director of research computing for the Arts and Humanities at Harvard University Information Technology. And his message of helping archeology into the present is important for the future of the profession, he added. 'No academic field has a longer history of publishing. But few have so conservative a publishing tradition.' The lecture, 'A More Open Future for the Past,' was delivered Sept. 10 at Science Center Hall A. Kansa teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-directs the nonprofit Alexandria Archive Institute in San Francisco. He’s at the forefront of a movement to shift archaeology publishing from expensive print platforms with limited reach to open-source venues that he said will broaden usage, encourage innovation, and improve scholarship by creating vibrant communities of researchers.

Link:

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/09/the-modern-opens-the-past/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.advocacy oa.events oa.presentations oa.harvard.u oa.archaeology oa.digital_futures_consortium oa.ssh

Date tagged:

09/19/2013, 12:18

Date published:

09/19/2013, 08:18