Monthly Archives: September 2015
George Fortune manuscripts open for research
I’m delighted to announce that the George Fortune Papers, 1869-2006 (2013 accretion with significant updates to the original finding aid) now are open for research. A small selection of items from the collection are available online. This has been a fascinating collection to work with and has the potential to support a variety of research projects. I’m personally charmed by the […]
Open access breakthrough for South Africa’s Rising Star discovery
On September 10, 2015 a new species of extinct Homo was published, H. naledi. Our genus has only one living species, H. sapiens (humans), but we know of a few extinct cousins from fossil remains. Such finds are exciting because, among other things, they are the rarest of all fossil finds. Berger et al. 2015. “Homo naledi, a new […]
Models for publishing in African Studies
A guest post on Ton Dietz‘s blog (“Publish or Perish in African Studies: new ways to valorize research” posted on September 14, 2015 by fennekenveldkamp) offers a nice summary of African and western, as well as academic and publisher perspectives on the current status and range of publishing models. Dietz is Director of the African Studies Centre in Leiden, The Netherlands. This […]
Map shows smuggling route for poached ivory
An interactive map illustrates how ivory poaching and smuggling (in this case) from the Central African Republic to Sudan supports the violent campaigns of terror groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army. “National Geographic commissioned the creation of artificial tusks with hidden GPS trackers that were planted in the smuggling supply chain.” Read more in the article […]
Scholarly societies hold key to open access
Banks, Marcus. 2015. “Open Access Publishing: What it is and how to sustain it.” American Libraries 46(9/10):59-61. The article is a brief summary of the current (probably unsustainable) academic author/journal publisher/scholarly society/university library ecosystem or economy. My favorite quote from the article comes from Cameron Neylon, formerly of PLOS: “Scholarly societies hold the key to the […]
Kuwait prize for African health projects
The Amir of the State of Kuwait, His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, announced an initiative to the third African Arab Summit hosted by the State of Kuwait. This initiative described an annual award by the State of Kuwait for the advancement of economic, social, human resources, and infrastructure development in the African continent […]
African Studies library 