Dialogue, Debate, and Discourse
The theme of the current issue of Voices is dialogue, debate, and discourse. This issue is full of extremely rich material in a variety of genres. It has always been our hope that Voices would help to stimulate discursive practices among Music Therapists, related health professionals, and traditional knowledge keepers and healers around the world. The content in this issue has a very exciting scope in both breadth and depth. Some articles are theoretical and clinical in nature. There is a compelling story. The Interview section is greatly expanded. Starting with this issue, our Interview editors, Barbara Wheeler, Leslie Bunt, and Krzysztof Stachyra (welcome Kris!) have created three "strands" or types of interviews. We invite you to relish the stunning range of ideas and to comment on them in the Discussion Section of Voices. Then we will advance the initiative of "discursive practices" in our field.
Voices had a high profile at the World Congress for Music Therapy, held in Buenos Aires last July. The day before the congress, a large group of editors met for a retreat and discussed how we could continue to develop the forum and journal. Diego Schapira generously hosted this event. During the congress itself, Voices was presented with an exhibition in the foyer, and many music therapists contacted us to give feedback, ask questions, and share ideas. Finally, we also arranged a round table called "Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy – Access, Dialogue, and Critique." We had expected a few dozen participants and found it very encouraging to see the room packed with more than one hundred music therapists full of questions and suggestions about the future of our forum.
In response to the conference feedback, we have initiated some new plans. Soon, we will begin to post a "Resource" section. Currently, we are putting together an International team that will be able to identify these resources around the world. We are also inviting several Music Therapists to serve as editors of the Archive section. They will help to gather archival material from a greater range of countries and to find translators who can help translate these texts for posting in the Voices Archives section.
There is still more exciting news. Voices Managing Editor, Rune Rolvsjord, is in the process of setting up the Open Journal System (OJS) for Voices. "OJS is a journal management and publishing system that has been developed by the Public Knowledge Project through its federally funded efforts to expand and improve access to research." (Retrieved 10/25/2008 http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs). As of October 2008, OJS is used by 2000 journals around the world. The intent behind this project is to create more access to research internationally.
OJS assists with every stage of the refereed publishing process, from submissions through to online publication and indexing. Through its management systems, its finely grained indexing of research, and the context it provides for research, OJS seeks to improve both the scholarly and public quality of referred research.
OJS is open source software made freely available to journals worldwide for the purpose of making open access publishing a viable option for more journals, as open access can increase a journalÂ’s readership as well as its contribution to the public good on a global scale. (Retrieved 10/25/2008 http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs).
Once Voices is up and running in the OJS, things will be much more efficient for editors, readers, researchers, and librarians doing searches.
The spirit of OJS reflects the global reality that we share and the commitment to the sharing of knowledge in an open process that can still be peer-reviewed for good scholarship. This spirit, of course, is also a leap into more discursive practices in a contemporary, international context.
Please enjoy this very rich issue of Voices and participate by adding your voice to the Discussions about these articles, interviews, adding your own ideas and interests.
