<div dir="ltr"><div>estava na lista da iaspm latinoamericana:</div><div class="gmail_quote"><ul>Fuente:<br>
<a href="http://jhupressblog.com/2013/08/22/on-dissertations-embargoes-books-and-jobs/" target="_blank">http://jhupressblog.com/2013/08/22/on-dissertations-embargoes-books-and-jobs/</a><br>
<br>
Do not fear open access. Embrace<br>
it!<<a href="http://jhupressblog.com/2013/08/22/on-dissertations-embargoes-books-and-jobs/" target="_blank">http://jhupressblog.com/2013/08/22/on-dissertations-embargoes-books-and-jobs/</a>><br>
<br>
*Guest post by Rebecca Anne Goetz*<br>
<br>
In the recent controversy over the American Historical Association’s statement<br>
on open access dissertations<<a href="http://blog.historians.org/2013/07/american-historical-association-statement-on-policies-regarding-the-embargoing-of-completed-history-phd-dissertations/" target="_blank">http://blog.historians.org/2013/07/american-historical-association-statement-on-policies-regarding-the-embargoing-of-completed-history-phd-dissertations/</a>>,<br>
I<br>
found myself reliving an old argument about how scholars do research and<br>
share their work. The advent of both the internet and the social media<br>
tools that facilitate scholarly communication online have left our rather<br>
traditional professional associations scrambling to figure out how to<br>
respond to the vast changes in how we work and how we publish. The<br>
historian in me, of course, looks for past examples of how technology has<br>
changed the way we work—often for the better. And in the controversy over<br>
open access, I remembered the blog hysteria of 2005.<br>
<br>
In 2003, I started a blog. It was a crazy hodgepodge of a blog; I wrote<br>
about politics, cats, and my dissertation. Initially, I was pseudonymous,<br>
but later I accidentally outed myself to the world, with no consequences<br>
except that other scholars with suggestions about my dissertation could<br>
email me directly instead of leaving a comment. I liked blogging about my<br>
dissertation. I worked out awkward problems, shared documents, and tried<br>
out interpretations on an appreciative and engaged audience. You might<br>
imagine my surprise, though, when in 2005 I went on the academic job market<br>
and suddenly everyone thought my blog was a huge liability.<br>
<br>
That summer, an academic going by the pseudonym “Ivan Tribble” wrote a<br>
column in the Chronicle of Higher Education warning of<br>
doom<<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Bloggers-Need-Not-Apply/45022" target="_blank">http://chronicle.com/article/Bloggers-Need-Not-Apply/45022</a>> to<br>
all job seekers who chose to also blog. Tribble indicted blogs for not<br>
being peer-reviewed and therefore also illegitimate as forms of<br>
disseminating scholarly knowledge. The response to Tribble’s (rather inane)<br>
column in higher education hiring circles was pretty dire. I went to a<br>
forum for job candidates that fall during which the facilitator begged us<br>
to delete everything about ourselves from the internet and to never, ever<br>
post pictures of our cats. In other words, the anecdotal experience of one<br>
person who could not even share his name with the world suddenly became<br>
concrete evidence that within the blogging world, the sky was falling. The<br>
rumor spread: blogging damaged one’s chances at an academic job.<br>
<br>
One might call this the blog hysteria of the mid-00s. (I responded to<br>
Tribble’s nonsense<br>
here<<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Do-Not-Fear-the-Blog/44985" target="_blank">http://chronicle.com/article/Do-Not-Fear-the-Blog/44985</a>>).<br>
The blog panic passed. I first got one job, and then another, and now blogs<br>
are so commonplace as to be passé. In fact, many graduate students now<br>
blog, and blogs might even be assets on the job market. I haven’t heard<br>
similar complaints about Twitter or Facebook. Academia seems to have gotten<br>
used to the idea of social media as a medium for scholarly exchange. What<br>
was initially unfamiliar has become standard, and perhaps even expected.<br>
<br>
The recent kerfuffle over the American Historical Association’s statement<br>
on open access dissertations reminded me of this episode in 2005.<br>
Underlying the AHA’s statement is a hysteria similar to that generated by<br>
Tribble’s column. Based on rumors and innuendo (and, in the case of William<br>
Cronon’s follow-up<br>
column<<a href="http://blog.historians.org/2013/07/why-put-at-risk-the-publishing-options-of-our-most-vulnerable-colleagues/" target="_blank">http://blog.historians.org/2013/07/why-put-at-risk-the-publishing-options-of-our-most-vulnerable-colleagues/</a>>,<br>
“off the record” statements by publishers and editors), there is now a<br>
widespread belief that allowing one’s dissertation to be available via open<br>
access will prevent one from ever getting a book contract (and therefore a<br>
job and/or tenure). The only way to protect oneself is to embargo one’s<br>
dissertation for a period of up to six years. Fear prevents rational<br>
conversation about what open access is and how newly-minted PhDs can<br>
benefit from it.<br>
<br>
Open access strikes me as not that different from previous systems that<br>
allowed dissertations to be available via microfilm and later through<br>
ProQuest’s database. Open access cuts out the ProQuest middle man (and the<br>
fees paid by libraries to access material) and allows universities to make<br>
dissertations publicly available online. Jason M. Kelly has written an<br>
excellent<br>
short history<<a href="http://iupuidh.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/open-access-and-the-historical-profession/" target="_blank">http://iupuidh.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/open-access-and-the-historical-profession/</a>><br>
(on<br>
a blog, no less) of open access in the historical profession that gives a<br>
good overview of the OA movement and explains why many in the humanities<br>
are advocates of OA. What open access isn’t, of course, is an attempt to<br>
seize the intellectual property of dissertators, nor is it a tool to<br>
facilitate plagiarism. Nor is open access an attempt to prevent new PhDs<br>
from pursuing a career in academia. As Kelly points out, the evidence that<br>
publishers choose not to work with scholars whose dissertations are<br>
available via open access is very weak indeed, perhaps even non-existent.<br>
(I do agree that embargoing a dissertation is a good idea when classified<br>
material was used, or potentially sensitive oral interviews were conducted,<br>
but this will affect a very small proportion of history dissertations every<br>
year.)<br>
<br>
We do have anecdotal evidence that open access dissertations actually<br>
facilitate the traditional publication process. In a cogent response to the<br>
AHA’s policy statement, editors at Harvard University Press pointed out the<br>
obvious: if you can’t find a dissertation, you can’t sign a<br>
dissertation<<a href="http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2013/07/cant-find-it-cant-sign-it-on-dissertation-embargoes.html" target="_blank">http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2013/07/cant-find-it-cant-sign-it-on-dissertation-embargoes.html</a>>.<br>
HUP’s position on open access mirrored my own experience with Johns Hopkins<br>
University Press, which published my 2012 revision of my dissertation *The<br>
Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race*. I ended up<br>
submitting my manuscript to JHU Press *after* American history editor Bob<br>
Brugger had read the dissertation and sought me out at a conference to talk<br>
about it. I was never told not to mention in the acknowledgements that my<br>
book had once been a dissertation. Instead, Bob gave me lots of good advice<br>
about how to turn my dissertation into a book. A book, I might add, that is<br>
selling well enough that I got a royalty check about six months after it<br>
came out. But the material point is this: Bob found my dissertation, signed<br>
it, and published it *because* he had access to it. Had I embargoed the<br>
dissertation, it would have been that much harder to find a publisher.<br>
<br>
Indeed, I fear that embargoing a dissertation might result in real harm to<br>
new PhDs just starting out. Within a year of my dissertation becoming<br>
available, I ran into people at conferences who had read it (I have a vivid<br>
memory of my friend Ed Blum bounding up to me and announcing that he just<br>
LOVED my dissertation and he had so much fun reading it, and oh by the way<br>
five pages were missing from the middle of it). By the time my contract<br>
came up for renewal in 2009, I was able to show numerous citations other<br>
historians had made to my dissertation. If I had embargoed the<br>
dissertation, many historians would not have had access to my work. As<br>
scholars we are supposed to speak to one another, and our written work is<br>
supposed to start conversations. Embargoing prevents good conversations<br>
from ever getting started.<br>
<br>
Rather than having a conversation based on fear and lack of concrete<br>
information, or, as I like to call it, a Tribble conversation, here’s what<br>
the historical profession should be talking about. We should be asking<br>
ourselves why we are so far behind in the open access movement. We should<br>
be looking at universities that have open access policies and figuring out<br>
how to disseminate historical knowledge using those policies, rather than<br>
trying to circumvent them. Imagine if the AHA had decided to look into<br>
building an arXiv-like network for historians, instead of trying to get<br>
around open access policies! (arXiv <<a href="http://arxiv.org/" target="_blank">http://arxiv.org/</a>> is a forum for<br>
scientists to share new work and works in progress—and it does not seem to<br>
have inhibited scholarly publishing in those disciplines at all.) We should<br>
be thinking about how to respond to the challenge of changes in the<br>
publishing industry, not with fear, but with ideas about how to make open<br>
access work for recent graduates. The question the AHA’s statement should<br>
have asked is this: how do we embrace OA and make it into an advantage for<br>
our discipline?<br>
<br>
*[image: goetz] <<a href="http://bit.ly/UBPETT" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/UBPETT</a>>Rebecca Anne Goetz is an associate<br>
professor of history at New York University and the author of *The Baptism<br>
of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race <<a href="http://bit.ly/UBPETT" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/UBPETT</a>>, *her<br>
first book. She blogs infrequently at <a href="http://historianess.wordpress.com" target="_blank">historianess.wordpress.com</a> and tweets<br>
quite regularly from @historianess <<a href="https://twitter.com/historianess" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/historianess</a>>.*<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
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