Environmental Humanities and Open Access

On occasion of Open Access Week our friends at the journal Environmental Humanities have asked Andrew Murphie, Dolly Jørgensen, Fred Gibbs and Wilko Hardenberg to answer the following question:

Does open access publishing have a particularly important role to play when it comes to research in the environmental humanities? Why?

Here are a few excerpts from their answers:

“Both EH and OA provide two of the best opportunities for whatever it is we think the academy, scholarly communication or intellectual engagement are/should be remaking themselves to be. They both provide the ideas and means that would allow broad fields of practice such as the humanities to transform themselves, at a time when this is very much needed.” – Andrew Murphie

“I believe environmental humanities scholars are doing extremely timely and relevant research, research that can and should affect contemporary policymaking. Thus, we need to make sure that our research does not disappear behind a non-accessible barrier. Our research needs to be read, and Open Access can serve as a facilitator permitting it to be read.” – Dolly Jørgensen

“Environmental humanities particularly requires open access to scholarship and data because of how local environmental studies can be aggregated to understand much larger and complex ecologies.” – Fred Gibbs

“I believe that there is another component of open access that is often overlooked and might also greatly help to foster better research in the environmental humanities: open access sources and notes. Natural scientists seem well aware of the fact that open raw data and laboratory notes are a pivotal part of a wider movement for open access, but this seems less true for practitioners of the humanities.” – Wilko Hardenberg

Read the full answers on Environmental Humanities’ blog In Conversation and participate in the discussion in their comments section.