AnthroSource!

For over a year, getting Museum Anthropology fully incorporated into AnthroSource has been a key goal, both for the Council for Museum Anthropology leadership and for the journal's editorial staff. This goal was partially realized tonight. I just got an automated email notice that the journal's current issue (29.2) was available online. Checking in AnthroSource, I saw that all of the issues falling into what I have been calling "the gap" are now available. The gap here refers to those issues published between those that were digitized and made available as part of the AnthroSource start-up and the upcoming 2007 issue (30.1), which is slated to be the first to be made immediately available in AnthroSource.

While I am thrilled with this tangible progress, I know that there are bugs to be fixed in the system and in the metadata coding process. In the current digital form, there are inconsistencies across and within issues to be addressed (for instance, authors conflated with reviewers, too much author information in 29.1 versus too little author information in 29.2, abstracts missing, etc.). I will be addressing these matters with the relevant UC Press staff. Despite these concerns (which hopefully we can address), it is wonderful to be able to access the recent issues of the journal online. I am especially pleased that recent authors can now share their fine work with colleagues more easily.

There is one portion of the complete run of Museum Anthropology that is not yet online. Missing still are the first nine volumes of the journal. Editorial Board Member (and new CMA Board Member) Candace Greene worked early this fall to secure copies of these issues and they are now in the works, being digitized and readied for inclusion in AnthroSource. When they are available there, I will note this fact here on the blog.