austraLasia #3354
SAN FRANCISCO: 22 January
2013
-- Students
at Don Bosco Hall, Berkeley USA, led by someone who 'knows
his game' in
the digital field, Sean Bryan, have undertaken an exciting
digitization
project to put the Journal of Salesian Studies online. This
has, in one
sense, been a long time coming and just had to happen, but
it needed to
happen properly, that is, by regarding JSS as an academic
journal of
considerable merit with a wide appeal throughout the
Salesian world
('Salesian' in its widest sense), and ultimately only able
to reach
that world through the digital medium. As you can see below
(material
'lifted' from the JSS homepage) it is being tackled
professionally:
Support
the Digital Republication Project
The first 25 issues of the Journal of Salesian Studies are in
the
process of digital republication, but we cannot do this
without your
support!
How to help:
Pray Please pray for the
success of this project, your prayers do make a difference!
Pledge
Visit our kickstarter page & pledge your financial support
Promote
Tell you friends about this project, and post the kickstarter
link on your facebook page
The Goal:
To digitally republish past issues of the Journal of Salesian Studies (in
both
searchable PDF format, and online academic journal format) in
order to make the Salesian spirit and charism more readily
available to
the Church, to academia, and to the world.
Funding Goal:
There are two funding goals. The first phase of the project
will
require $2,200 in pledges. This will enable us to publish the
past
issues in a searchable PDF format. The second phase will make
the
Journal available in an online academic journal format. This
will
require an estimated 2-3 times the amount of labor needed for
the
initial publication due to the need to complete a detailed
review of
the accuracy of the OCR (text recognition), as well as
additional
editing and publication requirements. Although the ultimate
goal of
this fundraising effort is the second phase, kickstarter.com
is an
all-or-nothing platform, so we do not get funded unless we
reach the
minimum pledge threshold, which is set by the phase one
requirement. If
we fail to reach this threshold, you are released of your
pledge. Since
the priority is making the Journal accessible, we created a
low
threshold to get it started, but ultimately, we will need to
reach an
estimated $5,000 to see this project all the way through to
the end.
Anything over the $5,000 will go toward funding the next
project: the
re-launch of the Journal with the publication of new articles.
The Deadline:
January 24th, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron of
the
Salesians of Don Bosco, marks the deadline of reaching our
minimum
funding goal. St. Francis de Sales is not only the patron of
the
Salesians, but also the patron of the press and of
journalism…how
fitting?!
One week later, January 31st marks the feast of our founder,
St. John
Bosco, as well as the 91st birthday of Fr. Arthur Lenti,
co-founder of
the Journal, and world-renowned author of many of the
articles. What a
great birthday present: the pledge to continue the legacy of
Fr.
Arthur, who has dedicated his life to the study and
propagation of the
Salesian spirit and charism.
Your Support Also Benefits
Students in Need:
Your contribution not only supports the digital republication
project,
but also goes toward helping college students in need. Don
Bosco Hall
is home to students at both the graduate and undergraduate
level. These
students chose to live with the Salesian community, and the
ones
involved with this project would not be able to afford their
education
if it wasn’t for the support of the Salesians. They are
excited about
participating in the digitization and publication of the
journals
because it not only provides them with flexible working hours,
and a
fair wage, but also because they see their work as a service
of the
Church and its mission.
