🚀 go-pugleaf

________________________________
From: Peter Suber [peter.suber@gmail.com]
Sent: 01 June 2013 20:40

     The SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #168
     June 1, 2013
     by Peter Suber

     Read this issue online
     http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-01-13.htm


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SOAN is sponsored and published by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
http://www.arl.org/sparc/

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Change at SOAN

The SPARC Open Access Newsletter is about to change. I wish I could tell you exactly how, but I can't. SPARC and I still trying to figure that out.

I launched the newsletter in March 2001 with the title, Free Online Scholarship Newsletter (FOSN). At the time I was a professor of philosophy at Earlham College, just starting a sabbatical. I wrote about an issue a week until September 2002, when I returned to full-time teaching. During the 02-03 academic year, I put the newsletter on ice, launched my blog as an alternative that I hoped would be lightweight, and resigned my teaching position to work full-time on OA. I revived the newsletter in July 2003 with the new title, SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN), reflecting the new role of SPARC as its sponsor and publisher. I wrote regular monthly issues for eight more years, until September 2011. Then I had to scale back and make it quarterly, to find time to run the new Harvard Open Access Project. Now I have to scale back again after 12 years and 168 issues.

I'm scaling back this time because I'm about to start my new gig as the Director of Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication.
http://hvrd.me/12smCIO
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/8322

The newsletter's frequency may not decrease this time around, and may even increase. That's still up in the air. I'm the one scaling back, not the newsletter itself. I've been its solo author for 12 years, and that's what has to change. I need to give my new responsibilities the time they deserve. I don't need to stop writing, and don't plan to. But I do need to step back from the regular deadlines of SOAN, and that means changing SOAN as we know it.

Heather Joseph, SPARC's Executive Director, and I are thinking about what SOAN 2.0 might look like. We don't know yet, but this is a rare and welcome chance to rethink the whole operation, its format, frequency, authorship, and purpose. I may continue in some role, for example, on an editorial board or as an occasional contributor.

I loved writing the newsletter for the same reason that I can't continue writing it. It was regular, long-form analysis. It started closer to the short and sporadic end of the spectrum, but became regular and lengthy. I knew I could write shorter pieces, if I wanted, but over time I wanted to write longer, more reflective ones. That was a joy, even with immovable deadlines to qualify the joy. Unfortunately, I no longer have time for regular, long-form analysis. Fortunately, I'll still have time for some kinds of long-form writing, at least the kinds without recurring deadlines. As I find time, I'll write for journals, SOAN 2.0, another book, or some combination of these.

For short pieces, and alerts about longer ones, follow my blog.
http://bit.ly/suber-posts

There are several versions of the SOAN archive, and of course all are OA:

* The SPARC/ARL version of the archive contains all issues of FOSN and SOAN from March 28, 2001, to July 2, 2011. That's when SPARC changed its listserv software and moved to a Google Group.
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OANews/List.html

* The Google Group version of the archive contains all issues of SOAN from August 2, 2011, to the present.
https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/group/sparc-oanews/topics

* The Earlham College version of the archive contains all issues of FOSN and SOAN.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/archive.htm

* DASH, the Harvard institutional repository, also contains all issues of FOSN and SOAN, together with most of my other writings.
http://bit.ly/dash-suber

This short note isn't a good-bye. If I thought it were, it would be longer and sadder.
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<snip>

Read the rest online


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