Popular Anthropology Magazine = fail

08/04/10

13:09:01, by Lorenz

. Categories: Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing, anthropology (general), journal articles / papers, University / Academia

Popular Anthropology Magazine = fail

The first issue of the Popular Anthropology Magazine is out. It was meant to bridge the gap between academia and the public and between anthropologists and continents. Cool, we needed that. But the result is - in my opinion - disappointing. For it was made with outdated paper journals as ideal. The editors were thinking paper, not web. They do provide a downloadable version on their website but the flash animated paper-look-like version is a pain to navigate and read (the automatic scrolling is very irritating).

I finally tried to download the whole journal. It took ages and Firefox was about to crash. When the file finally was saved, it turned out to be 151 MB heavy. The pdf consisted of image files! Which means it is partly hard to read and you cannot copy and paste its content, and the links are not clickable. Fail! Can’t anthropologists do better? The articles deserve better. The table of contents looks promising, especially the sections on social science around the world.

>> take a look

New e-zine: American Ethnography

Imponderabilia - new international anthropology student journal

Open Access Anthropology Journals

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7 comments

Comment from: Kerim Friedman [Visitor]

My thoughts exactly...

2010-04-08 @ 15:49

Comment from: Fernanda Vasco [Visitor]

Would you prefer if the format looked more like your blogs? Obviously, you have not bothered to read the editorial (which, by the way, is easily done) then you would have realized that this publication is a work in progress. Unfortunately, there are too many people who would prefer to criticize the efforts of a bunch of graduate students while sitting around and not doing anything themselves.

2010-04-09 @ 21:43

Comment from: Tyler Brown [Visitor]

Fernanda, I don't think the content or quality of the actual magazine was in question, but the way in which a huge mistake was made as regards its distribution. A 151mb file is inconvenient to the point that it can prevent people on various devices from accessing it. Were it a minor issue I might agree with you, but I believe this is a legitimate concern.

2010-04-15 @ 15:15

Comment from: Lorenz [Member]

Sorry for my late reply. Yes, Tyler Brown is right. My comment was about the usability issues, not about the content. Why not offer a simple standard pdf-download? Or a simple html-website version? No big deal actually. Take a look at Anthropology Matters for example

2010-04-15 @ 16:25

Comment from: Fernanda Vasco [Visitor]

The last time I checked, they are now offering a PDF version in their online archive. I personally like the flash-flip version. However, I can understand that some people might not be able to access the flash if they have dial up. But at least it's free!

2010-04-19 @ 21:04

Comment from: Kay [Visitor]

They recently got a new art and I was wondering what everyone thinks of the new layout?

2011-03-21 @ 06:49

Comment from: Janaki [Visitor]

I just previewed an recent edition. This flip-flash is too hard to peruse; my students would get disoriented trying to flip up down back and forward. And the article topics are too often politically tinged. It is time to explore other elements of culture as well... lets see some emic descriptions and explanations of some of the thousands of cultures out there.