It’s the 10th anniversary of Open Access Week. The theme this year is “Open in order to….” to highlight the ways open access publishing, research, and scholarship are enabling new kinds of scholarly work. As Nick Shockey writes:
“Open Access—the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need—is transforming the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. Providing Open Access to research has the power to accelerate scientific advancements and spur job growth in a wide range of fields, from healthcare to energy to agriculture” – Nick Shockey, OpenAccessWeek.org (http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/10th-annual-international-open-access-week-shines-spotlight-on-in)
As part of Open Access Week, Shawn Graham (History) and Pat Moore (MacOdrum Library) are delighted to announce the first issue of ‘Epoiesen: A Journal for Creative Engagement in History and Archaeology’, a fully open-access journal published in conjunction with MacOdrum Library.
“Library support has been integral to making this experiment a success – from working out our publishing strategy, to the digital infrastructure that underpins Epoiesen, I couldn’t be more grateful for how our partnership has worked” says Graham.
Not only is it open access, but the journal is also open to experiments and prototypes for what scholarly work can be in the humanities. ‘Epoiesen’ comes from the ancient Greek for ‘made’, as in, ‘Nikothenes made this’, a formula scrawled on Black and Red Figure pottery as potters and artists competed to enhance their craft.
The journal publishes what might be thought of as the ‘paradata’ – the scholarly work involved in creating creative non-traditional works that advance a scholarly argument. The first four pieces include photoessays, interactive fictions, and a Twitter essay. Pieces on Epoiesen are peer-reviewed openly, with the Respondents writing reflections that engage with the piece to advance the conversation. Finally, Epoiesen is equipped with the Hypothes.is web annotation framework, allowing word-level annotations and discussion on the page itself.
Please visit Epoiesen at http://epoiesen.library.carleton.ca. For more information, contact Shawn Graham at shawn.graham@carleton.ca