Publishing an Open Access Textbook: Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa

By Richard B. Primack

“Woe be to the generation that lets any higher faculty in its midst go underemployed.” Henry David Thoreau in his Journal.  

Publishing printed textbooks in Africa has numerous problems of cost for publishers, affordability for students, and distribution between countries.  So then, what is the best way to reach a wide audience in Africa with the message of conservation, wildlife protection, and park management?

 

Johnny Wilson and I decided that the best way forward was using Open Access publishing where a conservation biology textbook could be downloaded for free on any type of device. 

 

Open Access publishing has many advantages.

The textbook, Conservation Biology for Sub-Saharan Africa, published on-line by Open Book Publishers in 2000, has already been downloaded and viewed over 50,000 times. 

https://reports.openbookpublishers.com/public/report/10.11647/obp.0177

The cover of the textbook.

This remarkable reach could only have been achieved through Open Access publishing.

To read more about the advantages of Open Access publishing:

https://oabooks-toolkit.org/the-oabooks-landscape/7555171-author-success-stories/article/13700457-author-success-story-conservation-biology-in-sub-saharan-africa

Signs of spring in January?

 

By Richard B. Primack

“To us snow and cold seem a mere delaying of the spring. How far we are from understanding the value of these things in the economy of Nature!”  Henry David Thoreau in his Journals.

 

January was an amazingly warm month in eastern Massachusetts, with daytime temperatures about 6 degrees F above average and nighttime temperature about 10 degrees F above average.  In a normal year, January would be the middle of winter.  But climate change does not conform to our expectations based on past experience.

 

On January 18 I went for a long walk in the Webster Woods in Newton looking for signs of spring, though not really expecting to see much.  To my surprise, there were already signs of the effects of this unusual warm weather in creating spring-like events:

There were skunk cabbages plants in flower in the Vale stream.

Skunk cabbage in flower in mid January!

There were leaves of marsh marigold that had come above ground in the Vale stream and then damaged by frost.

Marsh marigold leaves above ground and damaged by frost.

Hammond Pond, which is normally covered with thick ice in mid-January, was open, and there were hundreds of waterbirds on the surface, including many small diving ducks.