Article in OLH Journal, The Comics Grid, Wins Prestigious Learned Society Prize

We are delighted to announce that Aleisha Ward's article, "New Zealand Jazz Concerts, the Use and Abuse of Grand Pianos, and One Cartoonist’s Response" -- published in the Open Library of Humanities-supported journal The Comics Grid -- has won the prestigious Rebecca Coyle Prize.

The Rebecca Coyle Prize is awarded to the best paper on popular music in the Australia-New Zealand region in a given year. The prize is named in honour of long time International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Australia / New Zealand (IASPM ANZ) member Rebecca Coyle in commemoration of her work advancing popular music studies and mentoring emerging academic talent. Prizes are awarded by a panel of senior IASPM-ANZ members.

The Comics Grid, edited by Ernesto Priego, makes original, media-specific contributions to the field of comics scholarship and advances the appreciation of comic art. Published open access by Ubiquity Press, the journal is financially underwritten by OLH's economic model so that authors never have to pay a fee to publish.

This is not the first time that a prestigious prize has been awarded to articles published in the Open Library of Humanities's journals. Last year, in 2016, an article in 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century was awarded the Donald Gray Prize.

Professor Martin Paul Eve, a CEO and founder of the Open Library of Humanities said: "It has often been asserted that there is a conflict between prestige and open access. Yet, for the second year in a row, an article published openly under the OLH model has won a prestigious prize from a notable learned society. For us, this just shows that the times are changing and, we hope, people are recognising that whether or not readers are excluded has nothing to do with the quality of the work therein. Furthermore, it goes to show the high editorial standards and reputational standing of our titles, including the excellent The Comics Grid in this case."

The article in question investigates an incident at a jazz concert in Auckland in 1952 at which the musicians were charged with abusing the new Steinway grand piano and the following controversy about the jazz musicians’ use of town hall facilities. The OLH team offer their congratulations to Aleisha and to The Comics Grid!