Open Access or Faux Access?

The headline on Monday’s announcement seemed impressive: “AAA Creates ‘Open Access’ to Anthropological Research.”

The announcement starts off by calling the new policy of the American Anthropological Association “a groundbreaking move” that would provide “greater access for the global social science and anthropological communities to 86 years of classic, historic research articles.” The problem, critics say, is that the emphasis should have been on the word “historic,” because those 86 years worth of articles aren’t the most recent 86 years. Rather the association will apply its new policy for its flagship journal, American Anthropologist, only 35 years after material was published. The association has created open access to the scholarship of the ’50s and ’60s.

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Money for Money and the study thereof.

By ckelty on Briefly Noted

Bill Maurer, of Mutual Life, Limited fame will lead a new institute at University of California, Irvine called the The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion which has been funded in part by a $1.7 million grant from the Gates foundation. A recent workshop launched the whole thing, with lots of interesting looking panels, and some papers and pointers to more resources. For those interested in the anthropology of money,

Marc Quinn: SIREN 2008 (detail)

Statuephilia: Exhibition by Contemporary Sculptors Opens Today at the British Museum

Marc Quinn’s Golden Fetish

Marc Quinn’s golden sculpture of Kate Moss has finally been made public at the British Museum as part of its Statuefilia exhibition. As expected, Quinn’s statue of Moss is in a similar pose as his bronze sculpture of the British model titled Sphinx. Apparently the golden version of Kate Moss was to be titled Siren, but has been renamed Aphrodite. According to the museum the piece is the largest gold sculpture to be made since the days of ancient Egypt. Quinn created the sculpture with over two millions dollars worth of gold. It has been suggested that the piece will earn six times that once sold.

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