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KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies has launched!

We are thrilled to share our first two articles, both exciting research papers that reflect the journal’s commitment to open access in scholarly communication. In “Modes of Annotation in the Video-Based Corpus FrancoToile: Developing a Design Method,” Catherine Caws and Stewart Arneil (University of Victoria) discuss their development of the digital library FrancoToile, which includes videos and annotated transcripts to help students develop cultural and linguistic literacies in French. As an open-access pedagogical resource, FrancoToile encourages users to learn about Francophone culture around the world in a dynamic and accessible format.

In “When the Law Advances Access to Learning: Locke and the Origins of Modern Copyright,” John Willinsky (Stanford University) takes an historical approach in his reflection on the challenges of adopting more open models of scholarly publishing in the digital era. Revisiting the origins of modern copyright law, Willinsky suggests that the passing of the Statute of Anne in 1710, which protected the access rights of scholars and the public to learned books as well as authors’ commercial rights—and was preceded by proposals for scholar-friendly legal reforms from advocates such as John Locke in the 1690s—is a useful example of legal reform to consider today as the academic community contends with the increasing commercial dominance of scholarly publishing.