UMass Amherst Libraries Mark Open Education Week with Publication of New Open Access Textbook

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The UMass Amherst Libraries announce the publication of “Radicalize the Hive,” an openly licensed textbook authored and assembled by Angela Roell, Stockbridge School of Agriculture, and Aisha Russell, editor and project manager. This textbook has a Creative Commons license, making it a free and openly available resource for anyone to use, share and remix.

“Radicalize the Hive,” a collection of stories from the field and resources for new and intermediate beekeepers interwoven with the author’s experience as a beekeeper over the last decade, centers stories of community-engaged beekeeping, marginalized voices, people of color, queer, trans and gender variant beekeepers and bee seekers.

“When I began this book, I was curious about who is working with bees in less ‘conventional’ ways and what practices we’re using to engage new beekeepers in ‘right’ relationship with honey bees,” says Roell.

This first iteration of the book is being released as a “reader version.” The authors welcome comments, ideas and input from the public. A final version will be published on Saturday, April 4.  

The announcement of the textbook’s publication coincides with Open Education Week from March 2-6, an Open Education Global initiative highlighting that “by providing free and open access to education and knowledge, open education helps create a world to support learning.”

“Radicalize the Hive,” as well as other openly licensed books, is available online or for download via Open Books Library, a catalog of open access books published by the UMass Amherst Libraries. The catalog is hosted on Pressbooks, an open source Wordpress plugin that allows for easy reading on the web as well as PDF and eBook downloads for offline reading.

The textbook was developed with funds from the Open Education Initiative, an annual effort of the Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication and the Office of the Provost to increase the number of low- or no-cost openly licensed teaching materials on campus.