The Impact of a Monograph: “A Woman without a Husband Is Like a Fish without a Bicycle”

November 4th, 2019

Scholarly books have long been the backbone of academia, but too often these books do not get the attention they deserve. In this series, we ask our authors which academic works have had a lasting influence on them. Follow this link to see the rest of the series.

This post is written by Nancy Wingfield, a series editor for our Central European Studies series.

“A Woman without a Husband Is Like a Fish without a Bicycle”

When Justin Race, the director at Purdue University Press, asked if I would like to blog about a monograph that has had an impact on me, I agreed with alacrity, before I’d thought through quite what kind of impact I might address. It didn’t take long, however, for me settle on Elizabeth D. Heineman’s What Difference Does a Husband Make?: Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany (University of California Press, 1999). The first part of the title always makes me snicker, while the subtitle precisely explains the topic.

What Difference Does a Husband Make? is the providential combination of a book that impressed me greatly and that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. It taught me to think broadly about gender. I’ve regularly cited it in my own work, recommended it to other scholars, and assigned it to students in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses. Indeed, I pride myself that my letter to the University of California Press about this book’s popularity among my students, many of whom couldn’t afford to buy it in hardback, helped get it published in paper. This pathbreaking book has a clear thesis, a well-written narrative, useful arguments, and interesting examples based on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources. The chapter titles, like “Marriage Rubble: The Crisis in the Family, Public and Private,” are enticing. Evocative images, often of Heineman’s female subjects, are incorporated into the text. In my opinion, it’s the very model of a monograph, from the elegant dustjacket (monochromatic; no red and no swastikas) to the comprehensive index. I even like the typeface. Every monograph should be as attractive to the eye and to the intellect as this one.

For those of you who don’t know Heineman’s book, it is a gender and social history of a long neglected, but crucial, element of the Third Reich: women. In her impressive work, Heineman doesn’t employ the standard political-historical divisions, but, rather like a social-history superwoman, she leaps over chronological barriers in a single bound. The wide sweep of her narrative arc includes analysis of women—unwed, married, divorced, and/or widowed—at work and at home across three German political regimes. The categories of women Heineman analyzes are not hard and fast, and women standing alone, from those the Nazis refused to permit to marry to those who looked at imploding families in the postwar era, and chose not to, populate the narrative. In her exploration of the construction of marital status, Heineman traces transitions in the relationships between women and the state from the prewar National Socialism of the 1930s through World War II and to the postwar consolidation of liberal democracy—and the reconstruction of the family—in West Germany and of communism in East Germany. As Heinemann writes, she attempts to untangle a web of comparative and interlocking histories: those of three German states and a period of statelessness.

I found Heineman’s book and the rest of her work, which I have voraciously consumed, useful in my own research, an excellent source for lecture material (above all the variety of behaviors the Nazis considered asocial), a popular reading assignment with undergraduates, and an enthusiastically dissected book in graduate seminars. It seems to me that a monograph can’t really be expected to do more.

Dean Beth McNeil: Advocating for Open, Transparent, and Sustainable Access to Scholarship

October 25th, 2019

by Beth McNeil, Dean of Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies and Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science

During International Open Access week each year, those who work in libraries around the world lead conversations on our campuses, sparking discussion on the changing nature of scholarly communication and the benefits of open access. We often offer OA-related programming and sometimes celebrate our successes during the past year. This year’s theme, “Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge,” is timely, as conversations have expanded beyond the benefits of open to the challenges of building new systems for sharing that offer full access for all.

Earlier this week here at Purdue, four faculty members from across campus described what “open” means to them during an engaging panel program moderated by Justin Race, director of Purdue University Press. Kris Bross, associate dean for research and creative endeavors, Honors College, and professor of English; Gaurav Chopra, assistant professor of chemistry; Wayne Wright, Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language and associate dean for research, graduate programs, and faculty development, College of Education; and Michael Witt, associate professor and interim associate dean for research, Libraries and School of Information Studies, each offered examples of how open scholarship/open science influenced their individual academic work and teaching. Their personal experience, plus comments and questions from the audience, made for a very engaging program.

When I think about what open means to me, I know that I, as a librarian, care deeply about making information available to all who need it. In university research libraries we work hard and, sometimes very creatively, to find ways to meet the information needs of our faculty, students, and campus community. Finding the balance between a scholarly communication ecosystem that I know needs deep and sustained change and meeting day-to-day local research information needs can be challenging and complicated.

Oct. 21-27, 2019, is International Open Access Week. This is part of a series — written by Purdue faculty and staff — that demonstrates the benefits of open access scholarly publishing. For the entire series, visit https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/oaweek19/.

Each year personnel in libraries, including here at Purdue, are forced to make tough decisions regarding which journal subscriptions to renew. Subscription cost increases of 5-7 percent each year are not sustainable, and when major for-profit publishers report profit margins in the 30–40 percent range each year, higher than Apple, Google, and Amazon — it just seems wrong.

I believe the scholarship and data produced by our researchers, scholars, and faculty can change the world, but to do so, it needs to be open and freely available for all. Contracts and licenses with publishers and content providers should be transparent across institutions and equitable for all parties, and the costs of scholarship should be financially sustainable for libraries. Open. Transparent. Sustainable. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Learn more about Purdue’s Open Access resources, including Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s open access digital repository, at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess.

Wayne Wright Honored with 2019 Leadership in Open Access Award

October 21st, 2019

Purdue University College of Education Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Programs, and Faculty Development and Professor and Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language Wayne Wright has been selected as the recipient of 2019 Leadership in Open Access Award from Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies and the Office of the Provost.

This week (Oct. 21-27) academic institutions and libraries across the globe are celebrating the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 12th annual International Open Access Week commemoration.

According to Dean of Libraries and School of Information Studies and Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science Beth McNeil, Wright was chosen this year for his exceptional advocacy for Open Access (OA) at Purdue and beyond. Currently, Wright serves as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, an OA publication.

“Wayne also actively promotes Open Access by sharing open access news and events with his faculty and provides engaging learning opportunities for Purdue’s emerging scholars,” McNeil said.

In 2018, Wright collaborated with faculty in the College of Education and in Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies to help organize a workshop on trending OA topics for graduate students.

“This workshop brought together faculty, graduate students, and librarians, generating rich, cross-disciplinary discussions that continued beyond the workshop,” McNeil added.

Wright noted he’s grateful for Purdue’s commitment and the OA resources provided by Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies Scholarly Publishing Services to facilitate open access.

“It is a great honor to receive this award,” he explained. “Open Access research is premised on the idea that most research is produced by public universities; thus, the research should be freely accessible to the public.”

Information about other 2019 Open Access Week activities at Purdue is available at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2019/09/26/oa-week19/.

Learn more about Purdue’s Open Access resources, including Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s open access digital repository, at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess.

Purdue Libraries Establishes Open Access Fund to Support Purdue Researchers’ OA Publishing Pursuits

October 26th, 2018

Purdue University Libraries has established an Open Access Publishing Fund to support Purdue faculty, students, and staff (on the West Lafayette campus) who wish to publish their research in fully Open Access journals. According to Scholarly Publishing Specialist Nina Collins, individuals may apply for up to $2,000 to offset charges to publish in scholarly peer-reviewed journals.

Collins noted Purdue Libraries is launching the “OA Publishing Fund” pilot project this week to help celebrate the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 11th annual International Open Access Week (Oct. 22-28).

Information about how to submit an application to request OA publishing support and the link to the online application form are available at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess/fund.

The Libraries’ Open Access website has also been redesigned and is now live at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess (the link can also be found directly on the Libraries’ home page). The website includes a map that shows live, real-time downloads—totaling more than 17 million—from Purdue E-Pubs, Purdue University’s Open Access repository for scholarly works.

“Purdue University Libraries has long been a proponent of Open Access,” Collins said. “While we support initiatives that provide discounts on article processing charges, these fees continue to be out of reach for many. This fund seeks to both support research activities at Purdue University, as well as to increase discovery and visibility of Purdue University research outputs.”

For more information, contact Collins at nkcollin@purdue.edu.

Purdue Faculty Recognized for Contributions to Open Access Publishing

October 22nd, 2018

Seven individuals from Purdue University are being recognized (Monday, Oct. 22) for their contributions to open access with the Leadership in Open Access Award from Purdue University Libraries and the Office of the Provost.

This week (Oct. 22-28) academic institutions and libraries across the globe are celebrating the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 11th annual International Open Access Week commemoration.

The individuals selected to receive the award this year include: Dean of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute Gary Bertoline; David Huckleberry, coordinator of digital instruction, Purdue Department of Physics and Astronomy; and five continuing lecturers with Purdue Department of Mathematics, including: Owen Davis, Huimei Delgado, David Norris, Patrick Devlin, and Timothy Delworth.

According to Scholarly Publishing Outreach Specialist Nina Collins, the individuals contributed to the following open access projects:

• Dean Bertoline and Purdue Polytechnic Institute collaborated with Purdue e-Pubs to build a bridge between the content entered into Digital Measures (an online tool faculty use to organize, manage, and report on activities and CV data) and Purdue e-Pubs’ repository content. The new bridge enables faculty using Digital Measures to opt in easily in order to have citations for their publications harvested by Purdue e-Pubs staff. Once harvested, Purdue e-Pubs staff review publisher-sharing policies and work with faculty, providing free, mediated deposits to Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue University’s institutional repository (which provides free, global access to the scholarly outputs of Purdue University).
• In 2014, Delworth and Delgado participated in a workshop by the Open Textbook Network sponsored by Purdue University Libraries. Delgado, Devlin, Norris, and Davis worked with Huckleberry and ITaP staff to launch LON-CAPA, an open-source learning content management system, to support the adoption of open education resources in mathematics courses. To date, the Purdue Department of Mathematics, in collaboration with ITaP, have provided LON-CAPA courseware for more than 25,000 students, saving these students the burden of purchasing expensive math textbooks.

According to Interim Dean of Libraries Rhonda Phillips, the individuals were selected to receive the recognition this year for leading by example in the Open Access movement at Purdue University.

“These individuals have demonstrated leadership in Open Access to scholarly resources, and they truly exemplify what it means to ‘design equitable foundations for open knowledge,’ the theme of International Open Access Week 2018,” Phillips said. “I am pleased to present the 2018 Leadership in Open Access Award to each of them, in recognition of their outstanding leadership in this area, as well as of their continued commitment to increase visibility of scholarship at Purdue in partnership with Purdue e-Pubs.”

Since 2012, Purdue e-Pubs has more than 17 million downloads from users all over the world, with the average download rate of more than two million downloads per year.

For more information about Open Access at Purdue, visit www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess. Learn more about Purdue e-Pubs at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/.

Shofar: A 35-Year Retrospective

December 15th, 2017

In 2018, the long respected publication Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies welcomes a new look, a new schedule, and new editors. Purdue University Press reflects upon and celebrates the past 35 successful volumes in preparation for the Association for Jewish Studies annual conference, where the future of Shofar will be unveiled in our exhibit booth.

In recognition of the hard work of so many scholars over more than three decades, the Press has composed a special issue, “Shofar’s 35-Year Retrospective,” which is freely available via open access on Project MUSE through the end of January 2018. After January 31, the special issue may be accessed through your institution’s subscription to Project MUSE.

This special issue includes a 25-year retrospective article written by Shofar Founding Editor Joseph Haberer and published in 2008. It also contains a never-before-published 35-year retrospective article written by Shofar Editor Emeritus Zev Garber. Finally, the issue features the top 10 most downloaded articles from online journal distribution partners Project MUSE and JSTOR.

Purdue University Press will exhibit in booth 130 at the Association for Jewish Studies annual conference December 17-19. Please stop by the booth at any time and meet the new editors of Shofar, Eugene M. Avrutin and Ranen Omer-Sherman, during the Monday morning coffee break hosted by the Press. If you’re unable to attend but would like to learn more about Shofar, visit www.shofarjournal.com or contact shofar@purdue.edu.

Purdue Libraries Celebrating Open Access Week (Oct. 23-29)

October 23rd, 2017

This week is International Open Access Week, and Purdue University Libraries is joining libraries and other learning and educational institutions and organizations across the globe to celebrate the benefits of “opening up access to research and scholarship.”

As part of the Open Access Week celebration, Purdue Libraries is hosting Brian Hole, CEO of Ubiquity Press, who will give a talk on open access starting at 10 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 26 in the Wilmeth Active Learning Center (WALC), room 3121. The presentation is open free to the public.

In addition, Purdue Libraries will announce the 2017 Purdue University winner of the Leadership in Open Access Award later this week.

Open Access History

This year marks the 10th year Open Access Week as been officially celebrated, according to Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC, the organization responsible for creating Open Access Week to broaden support for Open Access to scholarly research.

“Since Open Access Week first began, we’ve made significant progress in building global awareness of the benefits of opening up access to research and scholarship. Around the world, institutions and individuals are increasingly embracing the use of ‘Open’ as an enabling strategy,” said Joseph. “Whether your mission is to tackle critical problems like climate change or ending poverty or to capitalize on the enormous opportunities that having the world’s knowledge at your fingertips presents, Open Access practices and policies can help you speed up progress towards achieving your goals—and that’s a very powerful, very appealing prospect.”

Open Access @ Purdue

To provide a bit of background about Open Access at Purdue University, Scholarly Publishing Specialist Nina Collins, who works in the Purdue Scholarly Publishing Division (part of the Purdue University Libraries), answered a few questions about the Open Access services and scholarly publishing resources offered.

Q. What is Open Access and why is it important to recognize?

Collins: According to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Open Access is the “free, immediate, online availability of those works that scholars give freely to the world without expectation of payment.” It is an alternate business model for scholarly publishing, allowing free access to the end user. Traditional scholarly publishing business models can contribute to information access inequality—where only affluent research institutions or countries can afford scholarly literature. Open Access breaks down this barrier, allowing access to anyone. Open Access can increase the pace of research and innovation by removing paywalls that limit access to the most recent scientific literature.

Q. What are the Open Access services and resources that Purdue Libraries’ Scholarly Communication offers?

Collins: Purdue Libraries’ Scholarly Communication involves several departments within the Libraries, and personnel in Research Data @ Purdue University Libraries are available to assist with data management planning, data curation, and publishing datasets. In addition, Purdue University Libraries is the home of the University Copyright Office, and staff there are available to assist with copyright, helping make sense of copyright transfer agreements. Purdue Scholarly Publishing Division staff members are also available to assist with most scholarly communication questions.

Purdue University Libraries support Open Access by offering services such as PURR (Purdue University Research Repository), and Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s institutional repository.

Purdue e-Pubs staff members work with individuals and departments across campus to provide “open” copies of articles that have been published by Purdue faculty and researchers. We also engage in campus-wide outreach, giving presentations on various topics relevant to scholarly communication.

The Purdue Scholarly Publishing Division offers a free mediated CV review service to Purdue faculty and researchers. Our staff will review sharing policies of the journals in which staff have published their research; and, for those that permit sharing, we will upload the articles on behalf of the staff members—with their written permission, of course. We will review copyright transfer agreements upon request, and we seek to find ways to make Purdue research freely available.

Q. What is your role in regard to Open Access resources at Purdue?

Collins: Within the Scholarly Publishing Division, I am the go-to person for scholarly communication and Open Access concerns. I manage Purdue e-Pubs, engage in outreach, and collaborate across departments to help researchers find the right service for each scholarly communication concern.

Purdue University Libraries, which is an institutional member of SPARC, supports many Open Access initiatives including DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), HathiTrust, the Open Textbook Network, and SCOAP3.

We are institutional members of BioMed Central—qualifying all researchers at Purdue a 15 percent discount on article processing charges for BioMed Central journals. We are also institutional members of MDPI, qualifying all researchers at Purdue a 10 percent discount on article processing charges for publishing in MDPI journals.

Purdue University Press and Scholarly Publishing Division publishes several completely Open Access journals, and we are proud to have publications selected for “unlatching” by Knowledge Unlatched.

For more information, visit www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess or contact Collins at nkcollin@purdue.edu.