HaSafran members,
A few weeks ago, I had a lengthy talk with Jay Flynn, Gale's VP
for social science publications and the mahoot eventually
responsible for the Encyc. of Race and Racism. I had sent an email
to one of the associate editors mentioned earlier in this
correspondence in order to get a more "official" statement about
Gale's position regarding the "Zionism" article. My msg bounced to
him and he called me to follow up.
I will first mention that Mr. Flynn was aware of the discussion on
the HaSafran list and, in fact, quoted back to me some of my less
temperate statements shared here. He was also clear that he was hurt
by the nature of the criticism leveled at Gale and discussed in some
detail the brief exchange with David Harris who rejected offers of a
continued discussion exploring potential remedies to the situation.
I would say Mr. Flynn's overall tone was defensive. He pointed out
that Gale had published 17 articles about Zionism in their
encyclopedias since 2001 ("1 out of 17 isn't bad") and that
they were the published of the Encyc. Judaica. He also dropped
references to the Jewish background and connections of various people
involved in the publication.
For my part I tried to set aside the "controversy" as the focus of my
concern and tried to bring the scholarly, and therefore the
editorial, failures of the article to the forefront. I never felt
that I received an answer to those concerns beyond the fact that
there were referee panels involved in selecting the author and in
approving the article for publication. I had the impression that Mr.
Flynn felt constrained from expressing his own views about the
article, but acknowledging hypothetically that "even if someone had a
concern" a hands-off editorial approach -- citing academic freedom --
might allow it move ahead anyway.
I spent a week or so contemplating that discussion and started
drafting my conclusions into an item in the blog I maintain for my
job. Seeing the letter from Gale shared on this list, I decided to
move ahead and publish my statement. You can see it at
http://jsucsclibrary.blogspot.com/
I will say that I decided, in that space and in that arena, not to
attempt a point-by-point critique of the article's errors or address
any issues in detail. My concerns are, first and foremost, that the
article exists at all, and secondly that it got published despite its
obvious failings.
Having worked out my own issues about this matter in this separate
venue, I still hope to see AJL take on the wider issues presented by
such publications. I've had a "go ahead" to try drafting a position
paper about anti-Semitism in scholarly publishing as one possible
move in that direction.
--
Lee Jaffe
3366 McHenry Library
University of California
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, California 95064
831.459.3297
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://library.ucsc.edu/
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
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