Spectrum celebrates its birthday with a song
Apple Blossom Soundwalk is an improvisation that celebrates the complex rhythms of birds and insects on an organic farm.
The recording by Andra McCartney, a professor at the Department of Communication Studies, happens to be the first audio file deposited in Spectrum – Concordia University’s research repository.
In conjunction with Open Access Week, which unfolds October 18 to 24, Spectrum marks its first anniversary. And what better birthday gift than to listen to McCartney’s Apple Blossom Soundwalk?
A year ago, Spectrum was launched with 6,000 Concordia retrospective theses and dissertations. It now contains over 180 articles, more than 60 books and monograph chapters, and some current theses all produced by Concordia researchers and students; all available through Google Scholar and other internet search engines.
McCartney’s work is part of the international Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice research project, which explores musical improvisation as a model for social change.
The deposit of McCartney’s work demonstrates the flexibility of Spectrum in managing diverse types of documents and helps to showcase the full spectrum (hence the name!) of Concordia’s academic endeavours to the world.
Scholars who wish to deposit research or creative works to Spectrum can find complete instructions and background information online.
Participants can learn more about the easy deposit process during an October 22 Spectrum workshop at the Vanier Library (Room VL-127.5; 7141 Sherbrooke St. W.). The event will address, for instance, whether a publisher will allow researchers to deposit copies of their works in a repository.
The support and participation of the Concordia community has made this initial year of Spectrum a success. Concordia is the first major university in Canada where faculty have given their overwhelming support to a concerted effort to make the full results of their research universally available – this is the essence of Open Access.
Following the university-wide Resolution on Open Access, passed at Senate in May 2010, researchers are increasingly taking steps to deposit their works in Concordia’s primary Open Access repository.
Related links:
• Spectrum
• Concordia Journal story on Spectrum
• Concordia Journal article about graduate work deposited in Spectrum