A few weeks ago, I helped Gary Hall and others test-run the CSearch database. It looks like a great project, working in relation to Culture Machine. Here is Gary's call for submissions: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
CULTURE MACHINE http://www.culturemachine.net
Culture Machine is looking for contributions to a digital archive for media and cultural studies texts and related materials. The archive,called CSeARCH (which stands for Cultural Studies e-Archive), is completely free to both download from and upload into. What's more, recent figures suggest that research published as 'open access' is between two and four times more likely to be read and cited than if it is just published in print-on-paper form.
You can find CSeARCH at: http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch
This will let you browse the archive as well as read and download its contents for free. It already contains over 500 books, book chapters,journal articles, interviews, lectures and so on, from Abbas and Agamben, through McRobbie and Poster, to Williams and Zizek.
To upload work into the archive go to the 'Submit' page. Fill in thebrief details and you'll then be sent a login name and password via e-mail together with a directlink. Click on the link and you'll be there - no need to login at thatpoint the first time. (The password just ensures no one but you can edit your entries.) It's really fast and easy.
We realise it's going to take a little time to grow. But one of theideas behind open access archives is that if everyone deposits a digital copy of their published material in the archive, then it means that allthe media and cultural studies research is going to be available for students, teachers, lecturers and researchers to use anywhere in the world, for free, for ever (as opposed to being restricted just to those individuals and institutions who can afford to pay for access to it inthe form of journal subscriptions, books cover prices, interlibrary loans, photocopying charges etc., as is the case now).
Obviously anything that is already in digital form, be it Word, pdf andso on, can be uploaded easily. If anyone does have early media and cultural studies texts, including out of print books, book chapters, journal editions or journal articles they can scan in or otherwise makeavailable, that would be great, too.
However, the idea is also to include recent and even current work, both already published and that which is awaiting publication.
More information about the archive, including how to include books, book chapters and journal articles which have already been published elsewhere, or which are due to be so in the future, without infringing copyright, is availablein:
'The Cultural Studies e-Archive Project (Original Pirate Copy)', Culture Machine 5, 2003 http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j005/Articles/hall.htm
But any questions or problems just send me an email:
gary.hall@connectfree.co.uk
Cheers, Gary
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ABOUT CULTURE MACHINE
Culture Machine is an umbrella term for a series of experiments in culture and theory.
The Culture Machine journal http://www.culturemachine.net The Culture Machine Reviews section http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/bk_rev.htm The Culture Machine InterZone http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/InterZone/index.htm The Culture Machine book series (published by Berg and including City of Panic by Paul Virilio) The Culture Machine open access archive CSeARCH http://www.culturemachine.net/csearch
Culture Machine has an International Advisory Board which includes Geoffrey Bennington, Robert Bernasconi, Lawrence Grossberg, Peggy Kamuf, Alphonso Lingis, Meaghan Morris, Paul Patton, Mark Poster, Avital Ronell, Nicholas Royle and Kenneth Surin.
For more information, visit the Culture Machine site at: http://www.culturemachine.net