Meeting Minutes IRT Meeting 11.15.12, 2-3:30 pm, Room 6304.01

Present: Kiersten Greene; Collette Sosnowy; David Chapin; Andrea Ades-Vasquez; Joan Greenbaum; David Chapin; Shawta Smith; Evan Misshula; Stephen Klein; Maggie Galvin. Guest speaker: Polly Thistlethwaite, Chief Librarian, Mina Rees Library, CUNY Grad Center

1) Polly presented on the publication options students have when depositing their dissertations ProQuest/UMI is the main aggregator of theses and dissertations. Students can choose traditional publication (only accessible through paid subscription service or direct payment) or open access (publicly accessible online for free; supported by $95 author fee). A 2^nd option is making it discoverable through search engines. You may delay release or embargo your work, which blocks distribution in any format (6 mo, 1 or 2 year embargo, can extend).

A disadvantage of this, besides no one being able to make use of the information, is that publishers may look at what kind of metrics your work is getting so far. Very few publishers refuse a work based on prior publications (they are looking for quality of work and editability into a book format).

Third party selling of your work (only relevant if you choose traditional publishing) is the most confusing part of this process. Plagiarism or stealing ideas or arguments are a concern but an advantage of open access is that if your work is plagiarized, your accessible dissertation is proof of publication.

With copyrighted materials such as images, fair use policies apply and these are well supported (for educational use; commenting on something; using less than 20% of original; low-quality representation). ProQuest can also separate text from other media and offer it as supplemental material, although this may not work for dissertations that are integrated, though ProQuest has said they will work on that when a student requests it.

Andrea raised concerns about publishing potentially-lucrative technology that a student has developed.

Evan suggested a brief information video/webinar that could be put on the library website to introduce students to the information.

Polly has assembled an impressive resource on the library website with all of this information: http://libguides.gc.cuny.edu/content.php?pid=231531 which we should distribute widely!

2) Evan described the Hackathon activity going on around CUNY. There’s a lot of interdisciplinary activity that lots of people want to be involved in.

3) We as a group can apply for funding for events through OpenCUNY. Also, IRT can apply to be a chartered organization for $600/semester (talk to Jen Tang). After 3 semesters, we could get office space on 5^th floor. Evan volunteered to lead the effort to write a draft charter.

4) Collette announced the launch of the JustPublics@365 website (much more information to come on the project from Jessie Daniels and Jen Jack Gieseking in future) and encouraged the group to register for MediaCamp events in January. Also, she briefed the group on the upcoming conference “Theorizing the Web” which will take place March 1-2, 2013 here at the Graduate Center. IRT will have a yet-to-be-determined role in the preparation and participation. And IRT members are encouraged to submit proposals. Deadline is Jan 6, 2013