Transcript Slide 1

“Yet the Librarians
Were Not Without a
Cunning Plan”
Growth fundamentalism
& institutionalised distrust
• Ideology-critical throat-clearing
• From the groves of academe to the grasslands of
Planet WoS
• 1,000,000 articles per year
• Second-order growth: citations
Sciences & Humanities
• Facts & bits of writing
• Defiance & adaptation
The Flemish Government’s
Special Research Fund (BOF)
• Divided between Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent & Leuven
• 65% allocated for diploma’s, staff & sundry simple
quantifiables
• 35% allocated for publication output
– 50% for ISI citations
– 50% for actual publications
• 85% for ISI-listed work
• 15% for other publications
• Share of non-ISI output in total budget:
• Share of ISI-output in total budget:
2.65%
32.35%
What Is to Be Done?
• Hang down your head
• Carry on regardless
• Whistle in the dark
– Tune 1: VABB
– Tune 2: OHP
Vlaams Academisch Bibliografisch Bestand
• Flemish Academic Bibliographic Index for the Human
and Social Sciences
• Distribution of 2.65% of BOF-budget over 4 university
associations
• Screening all non-ISI listed output
– Journals: peer-reviewed
– Books:
recognised academic publishers
• Risks
– Dismay
– Disappointment
– Demise
• (From RAE to REF)
Open Humanities Press
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Clogged-up publication channels
Taking control of the means of reproduction
Addressing credibility problem
Volunteer-editor-driven portal site for existing OA
journals
OHP Home
OHP Editorial Board
OHP Publication standards
OHP Journals
Leuven Library link to OHP
OHP Books
Waiting for the Librarians
It is recommended that you simply dig at random:
perhaps at the very spot where you stand you will come
upon scraps, shards, reminders of the dead. Also the
air: the air is full of sighs and cries. These are never
lost: if you listen carefully with a sympathetic ear, you
can hear them echoing forever within the second
sphere. The night is best: sometimes when you have
difficulty in falling asleep it is because your ears have
been reached by the cries of the dead which, like their
writings, are open to many interpretations.
J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians