Also, this piece curiously occurs front page beneath the fold and is continued on page two, which I feel is undue placement. Associate News Editor Yukon Damov wrote an actual news piece on the groundbreaking ceremony of a shiny new $58 million athletic centre on campus, which I believe should have been placed where my nonsense was.

Firewalled gardens of academia

The nebulous practices of convenient scholarship

What used to be an ivory tower has now become a “gated database,” according to a recent editorial for The Atlantic. The target is JSTOR, a company which digitizes scholarship for convenient use by universities and other such academic institutions, and its banner is “Free the Research!” The author of the piece, Laura McKenna, argues that JSTOR is a “stubborn tradition” which keeps the public from ever accessing its wealth of information with its reliance on archaic publisher relationships. “If academic journals skipped that needless step of providing a print version of their journals, they could simply upload the papers to a website and take the publishers out of the process,” she writes.

Admittedly, the established model for publishing scholarly material is not widely known and seldom considered, even by those who are directly responsible for the academic articles to which we often turn for our term papers. “I’ve never really been obliged, or encouraged, to think the issue through,” said Michael Dewar, Professor of Latin Language and Literature at U of T. “As a member of the University’s faculty I am given access to what JSTOR has to offer free of charge. But, conversely, I have never been consulted about its business model or its costs.”

The price for producing scholarly journals is deceptively steep, with respect both to money and to manpower. Dewar, who spent ten years on the editorial board of Phoenix, a journal of Classical Studies based at Trinity College, was eventually offered the position of Editor with overall responsibility, an opportunity which he declined. “There were several reasons for that decision, but an important one was [knowing] that taking on the job of Editor would mean yet more weekends and yet more evenings spent doing work that was usually tedious and, when not tedious, annoying, and yet less time spent on my own scholarship,” he said.

After the exhaustive work spent preparing a scholarly journal, the product is polished and compiled, and its editor sends it to a for-profit publisher who produces the physical issue. But since the readership for such products is nigh infinitesimal, publishers sell their content rights to companies such as JSTOR, who digitize and distribute the material online. They then sell the content back to the universities, first for an Archive Capital Fee (ACF) and then for Annual Access Fees (AAF). So the privilege of accessing JSTOR’s Arts & Science I collection costs U of T $45,000 initially, plus another $8,500 annually.

“Universities that created this academic content for free must pay to read it,” writes McKenna. While U of T, with its annual libraries budget reported to be in the neighbourhood of $72.5 million, can weather such financial costs rather easily, smaller institutions must devote a considerable chunk of their budget to such online resources. “The UC San Diego Libraries report that 65 per cent of their total budget goes towards getting access to JSTOR and other databases,” McKenna claims.

But McKenna generalizes and oversimplifies. “The situation is more complex than she presents it, and perhaps worse than she allows,” said Dewar. Upon reading McKenna’s statement that “faculty are given course release time to edit the journal and a small stipend,” Dewar snorted out loud. “Far from ever receiving a single moment’s course release let alone a penny of stipend, I do not receive any royalty payment if someone uses JSTOR to read something I myself have published in, say, Classical Quarterly,” said Dewar. “But then that was also true when Classical Quarterly was only available in hard copy, so I do not feel the loss.”

While evidently far from perfect, JSTOR is still a useful intermediary in making scholarly materials available to both students and academics. Universities cherish the prestige offered by the literary journals they produce, and academics often find professional advantages in performing services to the scholarly community through their work with them.

JSTOR has also recognized its reputation as a walled garden of academia that has denied hundreds of thousands of attempts to access its resources. Once previously available only to those institutions able to shoulder its hefty licensing fees, JSTOR now offers a “Register & Read” program, which grants temporary access to specific journals to those who would not normally have the privilege of enjoying such content.

McKenna may take issue with how JSTOR and services similar to it function, and indeed there is much to be said on the further matter of how the public indirectly funding the creation of such scholarship has severely limited access to it. But whatever its fault, JSTOR remains a pleasant and useful service for both students and professors alike. “I can obtain without leaving my office much that would previously have been available to me only if I hiked over to Robarts,” Dewar concluded. “I’m personally much more concerned by the degradation of undergraduate teaching in our public universities than by the ways in which any of the research they produce is turned into a commodity.”

The Spy Who Bored Me

Province celebrates pioneers of gay liberation movement

“On 14 October 2011, 15-year-old Jamie Hubley, an openly gay young man, committed suicide after being bullied at school,” said Charles Hill, the first president of the University of Toronto Homophile Association (UTHA), visibly holding back tears. The tragedy of Jamie Hubley is a timely reminder of the challenges members of LGBT communities have faced and continue to face to this day. This saddening reality surely weighed heavily on the minds of many of the attendees and distinguished speakers who gathered in the East Hall of UC on Wednesday for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque to honour the UTHA.

Dedicated by the Ontario Heritage Trust, this provincial plaque is the first of its kind to honour LGBT activism. “I believe this plaque is something that we should be proud of,” said Rosario Marchese, guest speaker and Trinity-Spadina MPP. “It’s a symbolic way of acknowledging and honouring the sexual diversity activism that exists in our community, and I believe that we will eventually receive the full equality the LGBT community deserves.”

Gay activist and architect of the gay liberation movement Jerald Moldenhauer established the UTHA in October 1969. His move to found the association was influenced in part by amendments to the Canadian Criminal Code in that same year which decriminalized certain homosexual acts between consenting adults. It was not only the first gay organization at U of T, but one of the first of its kind in Canada.

“What the UTHA started was an almost continuous history of activism on this campus,” said David Rayside, Director of the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at U of T. “There are very few – if any – institutions in this country than can claim as long a history of advocacy for LGBT issues. 1969 was an extraordinarily oppressive time for sexual minorities, so any organization of this type that was formed and had any kind of public face was an extraordinary achievement.”

Since the creation of UTHA, the U of T community continues to be a place where the recognition of gender minorities and sexual diversity is acknowledged and celebrated. From the earliest days of UTHA to what is now the LGBTOUT, the group has always been exceptionally vocal in their demands for social, legal, and political change.

“There’s been huge change; absolutely enormous,” reflected Rayside. “There’s been a tremendously positive shift in public attitudes, certainly from the 60s and 70s, and even over the last 20 years.”

Despite these vast improvements, many of which are tied directly to the work both accomplished and inspired by the UTHA, recent events demonstrate that, for the LGBT community, the fight for equality and acceptance is far from over. This past October not only saw the tragic suicide of Jamie Hubley, but also the regressive antics of BC politician Marc Dalton, who promoted an anti-gay church in the province’s legislature on October 18. Even the very day on which the commemorative plaque in honour of the UTHA was unveiled was not free of LGBT-related controversy, as U of T President David Naylor related the news of Shorter University in Georgia threatening to fire employees who refuse to declare that they are not gay.

“Often universities are the first refuge where young people can embrace and express their sexual identities,” said Naylor. “[Universities are] privileged places in that regard, but far from perfect. Outside of these walls, it is still not a sanctuary for many people who have sexual identities in the minority in our society. This is a fantastic commemoration and the impressive turnout certainly speaks to its own success, but it’s also a sign of the work still to be done.”

Naylor’s sentiment was echoed by every speaker who took to the podium to offer their own words on what the Provincial Plaque celebrates and symbolizes. “This is the first LGBT related Provincial Plaque in Ontario, and it acknowledges that sexual minorities are an important part of this province’s history,” concluded Rayside. “What I hope it doesn’t do is suggest that these struggles are purely historical.”

Perhaps Lisa Kadey, one of the many students of Sexual Diversity Studies in attendance, said it best: “Marking these moments in queer history is simultaneously a celebration of how far we’ve come, and a reminder of how much is left to do.”

Braid offers a masterful blend of inventive gameplay and novel narrative execution

Three years ago, independent software developer Jonathan Blow released Braid, a game which at the time was something of a champion for the artistic merits of video game design. Lauded for its striking artistic direction, inventive time manipulation mechanics, and poignant narrative, few games before or since have been met with as much adulation.

Braid tells the story of Tim, a man searching for a princess snatched away by an evil monster. Although the events framing the action remain deliberately vague, occasional text preambles nevertheless indicate that Tim is hoping to reconcile – or better yet erase – a mistake he has made.

Tim’s adventure is an exploration of themes, which sets it apart from other trite “save the princess” affairs. Braid deftly uses a single game play mechanic to express ideas of forgiveness, decision, and place. The pragmatic end of saving the princess isn’t the goal; it’s the emotional discoveries made along the way as perspectives gradually shift and come into focus.

As a game, Braid is a fairly straightforward puzzle-platform affair across six areas, each with its own variation on time manipulation. One world lets you rewind time at will, another has time advance and rewind as the player moves forwards or backwards, etc. Each variation is alluded to in the area’s introductory text, which is the only kink in an otherwise immaculate interweaving of narrative and game play.

It’s fitting, then, that Braid’s overarching narrative is as sophisticated as its core game play mechanic. The paragraphs framing the narrative are out of sequence, reminiscent of the film Memento but with a more human touch. Saving the princess becomes a metaphor for the lengths to which one goes in order to repair what’s been damaged, for how learning from a mistake never comes without the sting of the fault.

Unifying Braid is an aesthetically lush and beautiful style, with vivid brushwork art and soothing acoustic melodies. The feeling of being lulled to sleep permeates the entire experience, which compliments the dreamscape design exploring fresh perspectives on a familiar tale. From beginning to end, Braid never ceases to charm, and its fascinating narrative makes it all the more attractive.

And yet even after three years, Braid remains as alluring as ever, perhaps in part due to its closure (or lack thereof). Like the relationship between Tim and the princess – indeed like the relationships of anyone – Braid may come to an end, but it never resolves. What conclusion could be more appropriate than that?

Braid is available on PC, Mac, Linux, PSN, and XBLA for $10.