Open Access, Collaboration, Interdisciplinarity...

Open Access, Collaboration, Interdisciplinarity...

The Universe and I are working towards a better relationship, in some areas at least.  For example, I am trying to persuade the Universe that if it wants me to read something it must not put too difficult obstacles between me and that text.  Money is an obstacle.

So, we look for useful things in Open Access resources, useful books and articles - though sometimes those Open Access resources are hard to find, hidden deep within academic or commercial publisher web sites.  Come along, Universe, make things easier...

And, of course, funding bodies need to think again - is it really Open Access if it is so hard to find...?

I have already mentioned two aggregating web sites, OAPEN and DOAB, and you can browse those web sites, and, back-tracking, see how funding decisions and scholarly decisions have made books available there - very often through European academic publishing houses and funding bodies...  But the net is spreading wider...

'The OAPEN Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation based in the Netherlands, with its registered office at the National Library in The Hague. OAPEN is dedicated to open access, peer-reviewed books. OAPEN operates two platforms, the OAPEN Library (www.oapen.org), a central repository for hosting and disseminating OA books, and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB, www.doabooks.org), a discovery service for OA books...'

http://www.oapen.org/home

https://www.doabooks.org/

Directory of Open access Books is provided by OAPEN Foundation

Very often we can find material of Irish interest, and Irish Diaspora interest, within DOAB and OAPEN - and I will return to that at a later date.  Again, I have already mentioned here on Fiddler's Dog the lovely (money-saving) discovery of Mícheál Briody's lovely book about The Irish Folklore Commission, and Séamus Ó Duilearga (James Hamilton Delargy) - which became freely available on OAPEN just when I needed to cite it...  Thank you, Universe.

The Irish Folklore Commission 1935-1970: History, ideology, methodology Briody, Mícheál Finnish Literature Society / SKS, Helsinki 2008

http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=617192

Let me now cite something from an overlapping area of interest - interdisciplinary studies.  Often, usually at the funds-seeking part of a project, I get asked to advise on the 'interdisciplinary' part of the bid - and I tippy-toe in. 

Noting, for example, a remark by Amy E. Earhart - about p.28, 'The blurring of interdisciplinarity with collaboration...'

Challenging Gaps: Redesigning Collaboration in the Digital Humanities

in

The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age Edited by Amy E. Earhart and Andrew Jewell

Series: Editorial Theory and Literary Criticism

http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/etlc.9362034.0001.001

(This book is free to read and download on yet another Open Access site, digitalculturebooks, an imprint of the University of Michigan Press...  Not that easy to find, unless you already know it is there.)

But let me look briefly at an 'interdisciplinary' moment, one that is almost the opposite of collaboration - I can look briefly because the text is open access on the OAPEN web, and you can read it at your leisure.

I read this splendid book by Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall as a study of that moment when we try to be interdisciplinary, but realise that first of all we have to be critical - one discipline must offer a critique of another discipline.  In this case Widerquist and McCall ask how and why do modern philosophers use and perpetuate myths about prehistory?  (I might add that economists and theologians do it too...)

Widerquist, K., & McCall, G. (2017). Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Retrieved from http://www.oapen.org/record/625284

Would I have come across this book if it were not for DOAB, OAPEN and Open Access?  Thank you, Universe.

Patrick O'Sullivan

25 years of the Irish Studies Review

25 years of the Irish Studies Review

There is to be a reception to commemorate 25 years of the Irish Studies Review, plus a presentation of postgraduate prizes from the British Association of Irish Studies at the Embassy of Ireland, London, on 23rd May 2018.

Looking back, those of us who were there at the beginning of the Irish Studies Review, and the founding of the British Association of Irish Studies...

I have put most of my Irish Diaspora Studies material on my MediaFire archive...

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/ooj5btdttc9y4/Documents

There is a little cluster of items which first appeared in Irish Studies Review, from 1992 onwards.

A number of writerly names are perhaps over-represented in the early issues of Irish Studies Review. 

The Founding Editors were, in those years, still finding their way - seeing quite where to pitch the journal - and a number of us were supportive, and did what the Editors asked us to do.

For example, the Editors decided to publish a short story of mine, 'The Fiddler's Apprentice' - the text, as published, complete with errors, is in that MediaFire archive.

I am told that the Editors were later to bitterly regret publishing that short story - for, they say, they were thereafter swamped by unsolicited short stories.

What can I say?  Not my fault, not my fault...

That story, 'The Fiddler's Apprentice' was later picked up by BBC Radio - I have put an audio file here...

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/lckrf8paym1n9/Music_%26_Audio

Later Irish Studies Review was to morph into a standard academic journal...  Quite right, too...

And here is an opportunity to congratulate the Irish Studies Review team...

Visualising the Emigrant Letter‪ ARTICLE FREE ONLINE

Moreton, E., O’Leary, N., & O’Sullivan, P. (2014). ‪Visualising the Emigrant Letter‪. Revue Européenne Des Migrations Internationales, 30(3), 49–69.

This article is now freely available on line...

Specialists will recognise that there is, as it were, a 'ghost article' in there, waiting to be written - the more firmly Irish version of our work on Emigrant Letters, looking at our historiographic tradition, Arnold Schrier, Kerby Miller, David Fitzpatrick and so on.  This would also now look at more recent developments, which I still track - for myself and on behalf of Emma Moreton and her networks.  Yes, looking at our tradition, and specific Irish problems - always that issue of looking at only Irish material, in isolation.  So, also connecting with the wider literature, and with other interests of mine, like literacy/orality, writing as an exploration of the self, writing as a creation of the self, identities, language choices.

But it is nice to see that Revue Européenne Des Migrations Internationales (REMI) article online - and see how they have displayed the visual material.  Note all the work that goes into the creation of Digital Humanities visualisations.  One question for me, as we explored that Digital Humanities approach to Irish material, was:  Does all that work pay dividends, does it open up new approaches to existing research questions, and open up routes to new research questions?  The answer is, Yes.

Patrick O'Sullivan

Visualising the Emigrant Letter

Propositions pour une visualisation graphique de correspondances de migrants

Propuestas para una visualización gráfica de las correspondencias de emigrantes

Emma Moreton, Niall O’Leary et Patrick O’Sullivan

http://www.cairn.info/revue-europeenne-des-migrations-internationales-2014-3-page-49.htm

Emigrant letters are a rich resource for teaching and learning, transcending disciplinary and methodological boundaries. They are expressive and indicative of correspondents’ identities, values, preoccupations and beliefs, providing a powerful source of information about migration issues and shedding light on processes of language change and variation. Although many emigrant letter collections have now been digitised, not all are properly archived; some are reduplicated and others are in danger of being lost. The documentation and preservation of such letters is, therefore, a particularly pressing need. In 2013, an AHRC research network was established to look at ways of improving interconnectivity between digital collections of migrant correspondence. This paper reports on work carried out so far, focusing on how emigrant letter projects might move beyond the digitisation stage to exploit text content and enhance usability and searchability through the use of visualisation tools.

Index terms

Keywords :correspondance, lettres de migrants, TEI markup, outils de visualisation graphique, TEI, visualisation graphique de données, geotagging

Keywords :correspondence, emigrant letters, TEI markup, visualisation tools, TEI, data visualisation, geotagging

Further information, about policy - to make the contents of the journal available to a wide range of readers (researchers, teachers, students, etc.), and to promote the accessibility of the journal to the Anglophone public through the International Cairn platform...

https://www.cairn-int.info/about_this_journal.php?ID_REVUE=E_REMI

Tolkien in Oxford - 50 years ago

Stuart Lee, Merton College, Oxford, has written to me, noting that it was exactly 50 years ago this week - 5th to 9th February 1968 - that the cameras and crew came to Oxford, to film Tolkien, in Oxford.

Stuart says, 'I am sure you knew...'  Well, I did not.  Thank you, Stuart...

Now, on to the next rescue...

Patrick O'Sullivan
February 2018

Alison O’Sullivan explains corporate parenting

I have mentioned the work of my wife, Alison, in a number of places...

Like, on this blog - where she is The Spouse.

Friends will be interested in this Blog entry on the NHS web site, which gives some idea of Alison's recent thinking and current projects...

Alison O’Sullivan

Blog

Corporate parenting for children in care with mental health needs: commissioners in action

29 November 2017  Alison O’Sullivan

Children and young people

Commissioning

Mental health

In this blog, Alison O’Sullivan explains what corporate parenting means in practice and why it is so important for children with mental health needs in care.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/corporate-parenting-for-children-in-care-with-mental-health-needs-commissioners-in-action/

Visiting Scholar, New York University, 2017-18

I am pleased to be able to report that New York University has renewed, for a further year, 2017-2018, my Visiting Scholar relationship with the University.

My thanks to the University.  Special thanks to the team at the Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, who choreographed and supported the procedure.  And special, special thanks to Miriam Nyhan Grey, Director of Graduate Studies at Ireland House, and Eli Elliott, Department Administrator - who coaxed me into writing an up to date CV.  I am not good at CVs - complicated life.

It was very good to, briefly, touch base with my Glucksman Ireland House colleagues at the Global Irish Diaspora Congress, in Dublin, August 2017.  As all the world knows, I am not a good traveller - but I can get to Dublin.

I do feel privileged to have this continuing relationship with NYU.  There are a number of projects, in the scholarly, academic parts of my life, that I would hesitate to take on if I did not have ready, and quality, access to the research record.  So, for a further year, I can feel comfortable about that. 

Also, people who know my work will be aware that in recent years I have given myself the task - life has given me the task - of rescuing and making sure that the research record knows about past projects.  Rescues have included the Tolkien in Oxford BBC film, 1968, The Irish World Wide series, 6 volumes, 1992-1997, my song lyric archive, including the publication of a selection of lyrics in book form, Love Death and Whiskey, 2010, the archive of the Irish Diaspora List, 1997-2017.  And so on...  A forthcoming rescue involves the oral history stage play, Irish Night, 1987-1988.

So, different kinds of rescue, from different mediums, in different technological forms, spread over many decades.  (Go on, then - you try writing the bloody CV...)  But all benefitted, enormously, from the support of NYU, and, through NYU, access to research material.  For example, the rescue of the stage play, Irish Night, involves placing that 1987 project within the subsequent history of the oral history, documentary history stage play - and within the research record on the experiences of Irish people in England.

Thank you to the Glucksman Ireland House, and to New York University...

Patrick O'Sullivan

FREE ONLINE Irish Literary Supplement March 1982 - September 2016

Another new, free resource...

Go to...

http://newspapers.bc.edu/

You will find a link there to the Irish Literary Supplement, and the full archive of issues from 1982 onwards...

'Title: Irish Literary Supplement

Available online: 1 March 1982 - 1 September 2016 (70 issues) The Irish Literary Supplement is a twice-yearly publication of reviews of books of Irish interest and occasional articles and poetry. Founded in 1982 and edited by Robert G. Lowery, the ILS has been published in association with Boston College’s Irish Studies Program since 1986. Digitization of issues through 2016 was funded by the Brian P. Burns endowment, John J. Burns Library.'

There is more detailed information about the project in 'Irish Studies', the newsletter of the Center for Irish Programs, Boston College - and a web search will find more online discussion, no doubt...

So, there we have the discourse of Irish Studies, from 1982 onwards, in an archive, in a database - we should be able to find a way to ask it questions.  Like, I wonder when the word 'diaspora' was first used in its pages?

Patrick O'Sullivan