Fulcrum as a Publishing Platform for Open Access Books
This video presents a new platform for Open Access ebooks, Fulcrum (https://fulcrum.org/) developed at the University of Michigan. It is particularly geared toward the publication of long-form digital scholarship and supports restricted access as well as open access publications.
Published
Video Transcript
00:00
00:03
digital capability that we haven't had before.
00:05
00:08
more accessible.
00:09
00:13
know that my reader will hear what I'm talking
00:15
about allows me to make my writing more like my teaching.
00:18
00:20
convey the movement and the choreography
00:21
and so that makes a huge difference for us.
00:28
00:30
that we've published with authors.
00:32
Now we have a way to organize and display
00:35
all of their digital materials together
00:38
and to make them accessible with visually impaired
00:41
and hearing impaired users and people
00:44
who use assistive technology
00:45
and to also let them do more complicated things
00:48
that they wouldn't be able to do
00:50
just with a general website,
00:51
so having things like 3D models,
00:54
interactive maps, interactive timelines
00:57
and those sorts of things that tie directly into
00:59
their book and relate back to their book.
01:02
01:04
through Fulcrum access our data and use it.
01:08
They can access it directly in Fulcrum,
01:10
they can download, it's an extremely important,
01:12
powerful research tool for the museum
01:15
that our colleagues all over the world
01:17
can go online, go to my edition of Fulcrum
01:20
relating to my research, access that data,
01:25
use it, publish with it, produce new knowledge.
01:27
I mean this is exactly what the mission
01:29
of our museum is.
01:31
01:33
because I work on the performing arts
01:35
and so we always want to readers
01:37
to have access to visual material,
01:39
whether that's photographs or performance programs
01:42
or actual video of the performances
01:44
that we're analyzing, so having the digital platform
01:47
is really wonderful because we can upload
01:50
our own material that's not already accessible
01:51
and we can also link to materials.
01:53
Now that we have so many videos
01:56
circulating on the internet,
01:57
it's very helpful for readers to know
01:58
which video is the right one to watch
02:01
and also because I work across different languages
02:03
a lot of videos are only searchable
02:05
if you type in Chinese characters
02:07
and so being able to link directly
02:09
to those videos is really essential
02:11
for readers who can only read or type in English.
02:14
02:16
has allowed me to think as I'm writing
02:19
about what music I want my reader to hear
02:22
and then embed it in the book.
02:23
For me what Fulcrum has meant is
02:27
that as I'm writing I can think
02:29
in terms of audio, I can think
02:31
about what I need my reader to notice
02:34
and hear instead of thinking about
02:36
what I need to write that will clarify
02:40
the sound of the music without them hearing it,
02:42
so being able to make that assumption
02:45
about what's available to my reader
02:47
helps me tell the story in a more natural way.
02:50
I don't think I'm going back from here.
Director, University of Michigan Press
I am Director of University of Michigan Press and Associate University Librarian for Publishing at University of Michigan, based in the USA
Comments
This is an interesting project. The captions for the visually impared go a long way toward making this content universally accessible too.